VLD Art Blog

A side blog where I put up my Voltron artworks and post stuff about Voltron. I mainly draw Shiro but I'm a multi-shipper, so expect quite a few ships to be done (mainly Shance and Pidgance), even a few cross-ships.  Discourse, hate, and antis are not welcome here.

[nicht-vobla]

I’m still watching s8 and it’s so boring I had to distract myself. There is no better way for that than scrolling through @fate221 ’s blog and admiring her AUs <3

I wanted to draw this for 7th day of shidgemas (prompt: party) but I’m a lazy shit… so here it is - comletely late BUT with a dash of  @fate221 ’s age swap au

[zakurarain]

Draw draw draw as usual~ . Shiro from Voltron . . #sketchdaily #sketch #drawing #draw #drawingdaily #paper #shiro #takashishirogane #voltron #voltronlegendarydefender #sketchbook #traditional #traditionaldrawing #practice #practise #zakurarain #ink #copicmarkers #copic #portrait https://www.instagram.com/p/BsfqBZxA0HD/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=thuxt4f0o7pi

[sharpkatsudon-deactivated202004]

Fanarts for this amazing so sweet kolivance drable by @wajjs​

Find it >>Here<<

[zillabean]

‪Big beefy gift for my dear friend NormalArcher3 (twitter), a fellow Shiro enthusiast 😉💖💪🏻✨‬ Merry belated, sir ❤️❤️❤️

[steveahn]

See You Space Paladins… 

잘 가, 내 아이들… 

[formderptron]

[zakurarain]

A highly experimental piece of Shiro from Voltron.

[formderptron]

They spotted you

[zillabean]

I’m honored to have been a part of LetsVoltron’s (twitter) 5th anniversary podcast with 4 other awesome artists, @Elentori, @ArtOfKuroshinki, @KLionheart_Art & @melmeiko! (all twitter accounts)

Here are my own personal pieces from our big group collage :D My fave man Shiro to start + the cuddly Arusians! I’ve made little comments in the annotations of each image if you click through :) I’ll keep updating this post with more as I complete my full roster :)

Here’s a twitter post with a link to the actual podcast itself if you’d like to give it a listen! + Teepublic store!

Let’s Voltron 5th Anniversary Celebration

[zillabean]

More of my art from the podcast collab! Here’s Sendak and those Space Puffs from the Trash Nebula that like to hang with Pidge 😀

[celesse]

I was in a vintage mood so I looked up some Beatrix Potter and Holly Hobbie refs and had some fun!

[roaringwingstofly]

@headspacedad

[zuspacey]

Theory of relativity

[lupinsuniverse]

[headspacedad]

Please don’t take this as hate or anything, I’m just trying to get a better understanding. Why do people care so much for kuron? To me, Haggar had to use a clone since the real Shiro’s body is gone and it was a way for her to get a spy on the inside. I felt like the clone was always just a Shiro clone that Haggar started controlling. I didn’t think of him as a whole other character. Again, not trying to be mean, I just want better understand this different perspective.

first off, it takes a lot of courage to ask someone a question you know could be poor received, especially on a web site like tumblr.  You should give yourself a lot of credit for that and I mean that in complete sincerity.  That said, no worries, my friend.  Everyone approaches stories differently and takes different things away from them.  Kuron raised a lot of different emotions and reactions from the fandom and I still see posts that won’t label him as anything but ‘not my Shiro’ even now.  The EPs certainly intended the audience to see him as nothing but a plot point and not a character or personality.

But that’s on their heads as creators and writers for not taking into account the way that some people in their audience potentially bond and the  way certain story notes might resonate or intrigue groups in their audience.  Kuron is not the only character they missed completely on that with.

Empathy levels in people vary pretty wildly when it comes to who the brain decides to attach to, often based off of personal and past experience we have felt for ourselves.  I squirm my way right out of movies that have one of the characters doing embarrassing things, while friends of mine will just find it funny and enjoy the laugh.  It doesn’t mean my friends are heartless or lacking empathy, far from it, just that we all ascribe different levels of attachment to different things.  For instance, I didn’t really have any emotional response or attachment to Lotor, for good or bad, but I know quite a few people that really very deeply did respond emotionally and emphatically to him.  I could understand and appreciate his place in the story (and how badly it was handled) but I couldn’t feel for him on the level that other people did.  Sometimes parts of fandom are going to love a character and we’re just not going to get it.  It doesn’t make them right or us wrong.  It just means that different notes hit different people.  The important part is doing what you’re doing and asking why instead of just dismissing it as ‘silly’.

So - I’m going to do my best to answer your question but I’ve got to warn that this is going to be entirely from my own perspective and that another person that adores him just as much, or more, may have an entirely different reasoning behind it.  There’s no right or wrong in this, just that fictional characters hit all of us in different spots and Kuron happened to hit one of mine that goes pretty deep.  I would really love if some of the other people I know that are great Kuron stans would include their own thoughts on this as reblogs as well because I’m sure there’s a whole range of things we could cover between us.

To start I’ve got to say that I was suspicious of him from the start (back then I expected VLD’s storyline to make sense even if I had to wait for the ‘sense’ part later in the plot and too much of his ‘return’ didn’t make sense to me plus the fact the foreshadowing was pretty heavy handed) and I had no emotional response to the entire escape episode.  I very obviously adore Shiro but I just wasn’t getting anything for Kuron.  I didn’t dislike him but I didn’t have any emotional positive for him either.  If the writing had done a quick turn around on him and revealed his plot ‘twist’ fast, I probably would have been close to the same boat as you, interesting concept, not a lot of emotional attachment. 

However, I am super weak to ‘what makes a person who they are’ exploration stories.  What makes a human - human, what gives value to a life, when does self start: all of those appeal to me and its a good possibility that some of Kuron’s attraction is that basic question.  The ‘who am I and why am I that?’ the ‘what does me mean?’.  Kuron was pretty obviously not the Shiro we remembered and yet he was certainly someone and it seemed, to me, as if the more time went on, the more he was growing into that someone.  That ‘not quite Shiro’.  That someone that could have been his own person, separate from Shiro, and was starting to become them.  And the story’s writing didn’t focus enough, for me, on the ‘haggar controlled’ part to distract me from the ‘who is he becoming’ part (I still say that all his responses except one on Nuxella were spot on for Shiro and completely logical and sensible to the situation).  Kuron, quite simply, has too much self-awareness and self-agency, to be considered a non-human to me and the story gave him too much free rein to make his own decisions and be his own person for me to see him as anything but a separate personality.  Humans make decisions that move plot.  Plot points don’t make decisions, they simply exist.  Kuron was making decisions therefor he couldn’t, to me, be simply a plot point.  I never saw him as ‘Shiro’ either because Shiro is Shiro and if I wasn’t going to view him as Shiro than i would necessarily have to view him as someone ‘not Shiro’.  Someone complete to himself.  If the writing had focused on Haggar controlling every move he made and speaking through his mouth I would have seen him as nothing but her construct.  But for a large part of her ‘use’ of him, she did nothing but watch through his eyes and occasionally up the level of the operation (which was never actually explained so it meant very little to me in terms of the way I was seeing the story).  On the whole Kuron was left to his own devices which meant he had to have free will and self-control of his own actions and he was constantly shown to be trying to do what was best and what was right.  For me, a great deal of my empathy/sympathy for a fictional character relies on not how much they do, but rather how much they try.  

Kuron tried.

Kuron tried so hard and put so much of himself into it and who I am had to emotionally respond to that kind of determination.  And personally, for me, the real tipping point was the moment he decided to convince Black to let him fly that put me firmly in his corner.  Not when Black agreed to let him fly - before that.  Because he sees his team out there, listens to them being threatened, being hurt, being in danger of being killed and he determines that he can’t sit by, he has to do something even if the only thing he can think of to do is something that’s been denied to him.  He goes to the Black lion knowing he’s been rejected, that he’s not welcome, that he’s been cast off (again) and he puts on that Black Paladin armor despite it and he sits in that seat despite it and its not for himself and its not for some scheme of Haggar’s - its because he loves these people and they’re being hurt.  And he’s going to try to fight through Black’s rejection and the complete dead silence from the lion and he’s going to - yes - beg.  And that’s - not Haggar.  That’s not even, necessarily Shiro, because Shiro approached his bond with the Black as ‘what can I do to strengthen our bond’ and Kuron approached from a position of having been rejected with a ‘please, help me help them’.  To me, though I could see Shiro doing that, in that moment, Kuron wasn’t Shiro.  He was entirely Kuron.  And his act was done for love.  Desperate helpless determined love.

He wasn’t Haggar’s creature. And he wasn’t just a plot point.  He was a character trying.

Black responded to that - and so did I.  So yeah, from that point I was entirely in Kuron’s corner.  I still wanted Shiro back, hell yes, of course I did.  But Kuron was his own character and he was trying hard to be what he thought he should be (and what I think he wanted to be).  He wasn’t perfect but he was trying and he kept right on trying all the way to the very end when Haggar violated him and took his agency entirely away from him and reduced him to her tool and for me that was the real horror of the entire thing.  Because it showed what he was like when he was her tool - which just showed us that, up until that point, he hadn’t been.  He’d been no one but himself.

And that self that he was is what I wanted to see win.  What I wanted to see acknowledged. What I wanted to see given the chance to grow and discover and become.  And, if not that, I at least wanted to see that ‘self’ acknowledged and mourned and the loss of that ‘self’ treated as something horrifying and horrible and tragic.  Because it wasn’t a emotionless plot point dying, his voice when he said Keith’s name last of all was full of vulnerable emotion, and it wasn’t a facet of Shiro dying because this was a ‘self’ that had lived, and was dying, outside of Shiro’s experiences.  It was an individual all his own dying and that should always be a tragedy and a loss.  He was not Shiro.  He was Haggar’s tool but it was no all or even most of what he was.  He was Kuron (or Ryou or the clone or whatever anyone names him because he was never allowed a name himself) and he had value and worth.  He loved his team.  He got scared of what he knew was off balance inside himself.  He laughed and got into the role play part of a knock off D&D game.  He felt pain and he felt fear for his friends and the galaxy.  He tried his hardest to do what was right even when his team was against it.  He tried to support Keith and also do what was right by the galaxy.  He apologized when he made mistakes with Lance.  He reached out for help when he felt lost.  He screamed in pain when he was tortured.

And he fought Haggar’s control over him with everything he had in him.

What makes a human - human?  What makes a soul alive?  What distinguishes us from everyone else, even our own twin?  What are we, at the end of the day when stripped down to our core?  Do experiences build who we are and change it?  Who are we?  What qualifies as ‘being alive’? 

And what gives that life worth?

[ashacrone]

@voltron @dreamworksanimation

[ptw30]

I agree with this completely. I wasn’t particular fond of Kuron, but he didn’t deserve to be treated as he was. And he was a paladin. He was a part of the team, and he should have been revered as such. At the very least, he should have been mourned. In actuality, the paladins should have saved him, too. 

Instead, he’s one of the tragedies of VLD. The clone was created for no other reasons than to hurt, to be hurt, and then to die. 

How cruel is that? 

Since everyone from EPs to VAs throw this out while discussing other aspects of the show, I’m going to use it. 

VLD is supposedly a kids’ show.  Why would @dreamworksanimation ever condone such horrifying treatment of a character, and why would @voltron create a character for these purposes only?

[ro-botany]

One thing that still strikes me about Kuron’s writing is that even after Haggar started completely controlling him, he was still written as someone trying so hard to do the right thing.

“You are to lead the Black Lion away from the fleet.” That’s the exact order Haggar gives Kuron early on in The Black Paladins. We can assume since she made him try to kill the others, that that order also meant to try and kill Keith, but… 

Nothing in that order told him to take Keith to the cloning facility. He could have lead him away to just about anywhere, a random moon would’ve been just as good.

Haggar didn’t order him to fight Keith using an energy blade, to fight Keith with the type of combat Keith is most skilled in.

When his arm turns into essentially an ion cannon, he was aiming in Keith’s general direction of course, but he wasn’t leading the shot, so he was missing and hitting parts of the facility instead. Both Kuron and Haggar probably know to lead the shot, but Kuron wasn’t doing that.

When Keith closed the distance between them, Kuron could’ve easily shot the ion cannon arm at Keith point blank and vaporized him. But Kuron switched back to the energy blade.

And when he told Keith “By now, the team’s already gone. I saw to it myself.” There was so, so much pain in that line delivery. That wasn’t a taunt he enjoyed giving, it hurt him to say.

Whatever the writing intended with all that, it felt to me like Kuron was still trying. Even with Haggar controlling his every move, he was trying to explain what was happening (bringing Keith to the cloning facility), and giving Keith the best chance to win the fight so that he wouldn’t be a danger to the team anymore. He might have even been trying to destroy the facility with that cannon, so none of those clones could be used as weapons either. He couldn’t outright stop Haggar from making him fight Keith, but he was sure as hell trying to give Keith his best chance, and he still cared so much about the others.

If the writing was trying to establish Kuron as just a plot point or just evil, imo they failed every step of the way, right up to Kuron’s last breath.

[ptw30]

You hit on something that gets me every.single.time. 

Right before Kuron shoots from his arm in “The Black Paladins,” this happens - 

He looks at Keith. He meets Keith’s gaze with complete and utter fear. 

He’s telling Keith to run. 

How can anyone - including Shiro himself - call this character an “evil clone”? He’s not. He’s just not. 

[bravepaladinsedits]

Since Keith and Shiro never interacted with the mice I just had to make some edits

From our Instagram @/bravepaladins

[headspacedad]

Shiro week: day 5: companion

Nights were always the worst.

Not that space has ‘nights’ to speak of but planet born creatures had sleep cycles in their blood and so ‘night’ came to the Castle even thrumming through the eternal dark of space.

And Shiro was left on his own.

Sometimes he slept.  He’d given up pretending he could on the bed, moved a blanket and pillow to the closet and - sometimes - he slept better in there.  Closed in and surrounded by walls, the small space felt - safe.  He was pretty sure it shouldn’t but - he couldn’t fight what he’d been made into all the time.  He had to sleep sometime. And the closet was the only place he could.

When he could - he slept.  But often he couldn’t sleep.  It left him at loose ends, something his nature rebelled at - but something his in need of distraction mind also tried to avoid.  He didn’t do well with nothing to do.  He never had but now it felt -

it was too easy to lose himself in the emptiness inside his head, where an entire year of memories wasn’t.  To easy to listen to the voices whispering that he wasn’t real, that he’d never really escaped, that it was only a matter of time before someone realized it and called him out.

It didn’t have to make sense.  It still had a way of wiggling down through his spine and lodging.

So nights were spent exercising.  Training.  Sitting with Black.  Watching the stars go by from the helm or the observation room.  Trying to learn to read Altean. Galra.  Trying to stay busy in the empty silence while his team slept, safe and protected under his watch.

Some nights it was harder than others to find distraction.

“Mm?” he looked down at the squeak near his boot, pulling himself out of an almost subconscious and fruitless search for constellations he recognized in the star charts spread out on the table in front of him.  Saw one of the mice… Chuchule maybe?  He didn’t have them memorized yet.  They were Allura’s mice.  Pidge’s companions.  Sometimes they shadowed Hunk in the kitchen.  But Shiro - there wasn’t a lot of room for small alien rodents in his routines.  But there was a mouse now, looking expectantly up at him and even though he knew they were capable, he lowered a hand to offer a lift to the table.  It just seemed polite.  The mouse, Chuchule, he was pretty sure, scrambled onboard, unphased by the fact it was a metal hand and not a normal one and just as he was lifting, there was a mad scramble and suddenly he had a full handful of mice and one running up his shirt sleeve.  It - was weird but pretty endearing and he smiled as he lifted them all onto the table in front of him, careful to set them where the star map wouldn’t slide under their small feet.  The one on his shoulder - Plachu possibly? - didn’t scamper down but remained and Shiro felt the brush of long whiskers against his cheek as it seemed intent on settling in.  They didn’t often interact with him.

“What is it?  Is everything all right?  Is something wrong with the princess?”

They weren’t acting alarmed but - why else would they have all showed up at the same time for his attention.  But - no.  From the miming, nothing was wrong.  Everyone was still sleeping, or at least Allura was if the little mimicked snores were any indication.  It made him smile again, watching Platt’s - he was pretty sure it was Platt - round belly rising and falling with the snores.

He resisted the urge to nudge it with a finger.

“You want food then?”  Because that seemed sensible but no.  Even if Platt looked like he might have been tempted to agree, the other mice made it clear this wasn’t a matter of food.

“All right. What do you need then?”

That answer took a great deal longer.  Shiro didn’t have the ‘mice’ skill that the women on the ship seemed to and there were quite a few false starts and mistakes on his part as he tried to work out what complex thing they were miming to him in answer.  Still, all those road trip games with Allura that Hunk had taught them seemed to have paid off because it was only ten or fifteen minutes later when Shiro finally pieced together:

“You want to put on another show for the princess but you want to practice it on me first?”

It had been a long time since he’d felt as proud of affirmation at his efforts as he did when the mice responded to the happy positive and he was sure that said something about him.  It still left a warm glow in his chest though and he was too wise to ignore that based on whether he thought it had merit or not.

“Okay,” he nodded.  “Show me how I can help.”

The next week and a half wasn’t so empty.  The routine the mice were working on was pretty complex and there were a lot of kinks to iron out of it. Apparently at least. Shiro mostly got to watch and provide the hands needed for certain tricks while the mice hashed it out in detail amoung themselves.  He enjoyed it though.  Their little cold feet were actually very comforting as they ran up and down and across him and listening to them squeak made the world very small and safe and full of warmth.  Eventually they got it worked out however and he was willing to admit he was sorry about it.  Not that he wanted to hold them back.  He’d just - miss the company.

Two nights later they were back however, new routine in need of practice, his hands and attention required while they worked away in secret on their next surprise for the princess.  Shiro felt included and it was a strange feeling.  It wasn’t as a member of the team or Voltron or even friendship.  It was just something he couldn’t define but felt inclusive and whole. 

It was during the third round of practice for a new routine that he finally mentioned it in passing to Allura.  Some casual comment that slipped out because he wanted to hear her praise their efforts - their efforts because he was starting to feel as if he was included in their routines as well even if he never got to be there when they entertained Allura with them and he hoped to hear how much she’d enjoyed the mice and the hard work they’d put in -

except she only gave him a puzzled smile and asked what he was on about.  The mice only did routines when the lack of missions gave her too much downtime and that certainly hadn’t been recently.

That night, as Chulatt clambered up his arm to swing from his thumb, Shiro offered Platt the cookie he’d snuck from dinner for him and then looked at Chuchule.  And he smiled.

“I think I’ve got an idea for your next routine…”

Nights were always the worst.  But - sometimes - the smallest distractions could fill up an entire empty night with their scurrying feet across him and their cheerful chatter.

It made the days easier to tackle too.

@blackpaladinweek

[theyoungdoyley]

some voltron fanart 

[nite-wing-deactivated20220418]