@otabek-the-anti going from this since it was getting long.
In regards to your comment, I know exactly the flashback you’re talking about. However, on there she looked somewhere between 11-13 years old rather than 16+. Personally, I’m assuming her to be around 18-19 Earth years at the present, same as my headcanon for Shiro. One can agree that 18-19yos look mature enough for Allura to be one of them, right? The difference from a 13yo to a 19yo is striking, which we can assume is the difference here since it’s similar enough.
You’re mentioning Alfor so I’m guessing it’s about his difference in appearance? I have two arguments on that: the first is that since the Altean Royal line has white hair, Alfor automatically looks older from the moment he lets his beard grow. The second is that we don’t know the aging patterns for Alteans (and for Galra, too), as seen with Haggar’s existence - who we don’t know for how long she’s been around, if her aging process has changed due to druidic magic and quintessence experiments, etc. But going from my own experience, my own father changed a lot in appearance on those years and looks quite a bit older now (hair turned 50% white, balding, deepened wrinkles). It’s more than half a decade of difference, and if Alfor was on his 40′s or 50′s - or the Altean equivalent of those - then his looks could have aged really fast.
Re: the context and who said it, I’ll just say that it lends the same validity to the video as the ages one. The ages video was not done on any official platform or during a panel, but rather during a signing where I’ve been told it’s a time-sensitive thing since there is always a big queue of people waiting for their turn. Therefore it wasn’t exactly a relaxed environment where they could confer about it (since before the video we already had staff members saying the ages had never been discussed), and seeing as there are several writers we have no guarantee if they’re all in agreement with the ages said back then (and yes, you could say the same about the Allura thing, I just don’t particularly care since for me stuff said outside of source material is never actual canon)
Listen, my post was not about disliking Allura or Shallura. I love Allura, I think she’s a fantastic character. The issue you pointed out is not with Allura being a teenage girl, but because people and the fandom don’t take teenage girls seriously. And there, buddy, lies the problem. Not with Allura being a teen. But with people taking teenage girls as actual literal children without any logic in their brains. You’re talking about the problems of taking away a Black-coded character that is competent and mature, but her being a teen doesn’t change her being that. What changes is that now teenage girls have someone like that as a role-model. Because hey, you don’t need to be an adult to be competent and mature and responsible, but most media these days sure like to pretend otherwise. The fandom likes to pretend otherwise. That’s on them, not on the writers and producers of the show.
Or did you forget about Katara, a character who went through the same producers and some of the writers as in VLD? She was 14. 14. Did the fandom not take her seriously? Did the fandom not see her as mature and powerful and responsible anyway? Katara is one of the most beloved characters and she’s very similar to Allura in quite a few aspects. Maybe when there’s similar characters on two different fandoms and the situation you described happens, the problem lies with the fandom, not with anything else.
As for the petition, my salt is mostly not that they’re asking for ages, entitled as they may be. (because yes, you don’t go around bothering your favourite writers to give you ages and blood types and birthdates and whatever the fuck for your favourite characters, do you? it’s just plain rude, you take what is shared with you and cherish it, not demand for everything you feel like you should have) My salt is that they’re asking for the ages now when the same issue happened with Shalladins and they didn’t lift a finger because it didn’t affect them. To be very honest, I’m calling them just desserts. Not to mention that, like I said, several staff members had already mentioned that ages had never been discussed before, so to conciliate the ideas of several writers and producers and etc and avoid a huge drama backlash like it always happens with this fandom is probably more trouble than it’s worth.
Man I just gotta say I respect that you’re dropping it when you’ve defended against the age gaps all along. In general I don’t have a very good opinion of antis, but I can respect those that don’t harrass people and who aren’t hypocritical. At least you’re keeping to your word, though I can assure you that nearly half the posts on the Shallura tag aren’t people dropping the ship, though I’m not pushing for people to do so. Like I said, I couldn’t care less since non-in-source material isn’t canon as far as I’m concerned. But yeah, I momentarily forgot you were one of those people who thinks a two year difference is Going To Hell grounds. Because everyone in this world needs to be the exact same age to be in a relationship. Good luck being born yall, I never would have been if the world followed that kind of logic.
