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as-many-times-as-it-takes · 7 years ago

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Hey! I hope I'm not being a bother (I'm about to be a big damn bother) but... I just saw your inspiring Sheith phrases post and all the quotes + your little bit of meta about it made me all misty... but here's the thing. I'm VERY VERY new to the fandom... and to Sheith... and I have NO IDEA what half of those quotes are from or are referring to. Can you help me out with some of them??? No-one I know ships Sheith so I don't know who else to ask!

Hi there Anon! Thanks for the ask!

And first of all to get this out of the way, you are not a bother. When you ask someone to talk about something they are very passionate about, it’s like getting told Christmas just came early. I’ve really wanted to be a more solid part of this fandom, but my shyness sometimes gets the better of me. So every question/ask, etc frickin’ lights up my day okay? Okay!

So I’ll break down the quotes the best I can for ya! Some of them are a little older and it might be a bit difficult to pull up the information for that. If anyone out there knows anything I’m missing better or has a link, etc, please feel free to share that with this post!

Also, since you enjoyed the meta, you might also like my post The Boy who Never Gave Up. This really outlines a lot of the background information shown in the series for Keith and Shiro that give rise to a lot of these quotes!

Alrighty, here we go!

SHEITH QUOTE MASTER POST

This will be a VERY LONG POST with LOTS OF PICTURES, LINKS AND QUOTES so I will be putting in a cut here to help!

It’s good to have you back / It’s good to be back

This quote comes from S01:E01 - The Rise of Voltron. It’s the first moment in which Keith and Shiro share dialogue together. Especially based on everything leading up to it, (Check out my post here for more on that), the tone here is very gentle. There is almost a hushed quiet to it, like you’re looking in on a private moment not meant for your eyes. There was something very sweet about it that just stuck around.

It’s killing me when you are away

So this is a really interesting one that I don’t believe was every officially confirmed by the team behind the show (someone correct me if I’m wrong here!) but a bunch of very dedicated fans picked this one apart into something that stuck with us ‘till the end.

Again in S01:E01 - The Rise of Voltron, we find this nearly directly after the quote above. When Keith takes Shiro and the other Paladins inside his Cabin, he shows them a bunch of notes, pictures, and assortments of other knowledge he has collected over his years alone, which led to him finding the Blue Lion’s location. However, while he is explaining his notes to everyone, there are glimpses of little sticky notes on his board. Fans looked these over to see if there was anything one these notes that was legible and this led to a really awesome post that you can view here.

The main conclusion was based on the lyrics from “Sugar” by Maroon 5, in which the words are

“I just wanna be deep in your loveAnd it’s killing me when you’re awayOoh, baby “

And the theory is that the note says“Just wanna be ‘something’ and it’s killing me when you’re away”

The something part implying that either A) Keith forgot the lines, B) The lines are a bit NSFW and so were changed slightly, C) Little column A & B? Keith was a little embarrassed and shortened it a bit.

This is all further supported when we’ve seen time and time again how much Keith adores Shiro and when we found out that Keith waited TWO YEARS on hopes and prayers waiting on his friend to come back. That would kill me too…

Shiro loves you baby / #He’s looking at Keith

This amazing piece came straight from Chris Palmer, one of the awesome story artists for Voltron. He posted this image with the words “Shiro loves you baby.” and one of his hashtags was #he’s looking at keith.

You can see the original post here

This, of course, made most of us explode with happiness. Not only was it freaking adorable, it told us that more of the people behind the scenes were quite possibly as invested and/or becoming as invested as many of us were with Sheith (A term which Josh Keaton himself stated he would like to coin for the ship pairing if it hadn’t been claimed already)

Many of the people who work on Voltron have posted something Sheith related. It’s a little hard to pull out specific pieces now as a lot of news and discourse has buried a lot of the original posts, but we’ve been very blessed. We’ve had official fan art, team members favouriting and commenting on fan art and lots of little snippets here and there that hinted that this was very possibly going to be canon.

Just like in The Legend of Korra, Korrasami became a thing later in the show. It was stated (I do not have a specific reference for this, mind you) that while the ship wasn’t originally intended, as the characters grew together with the show, the audience/fandom and with the team creating it, it just blossomed and the characters built a life they never expected. Oh, and many of those same people are working on Voltron~

Ninja mullet finds his true love

Straight from the spunky and lovable voice actor for Pidge, Bex Taylor-Klaus posted this while watching Keith find Shiro for the first time in ages in S01:E01 - The Rise of Voltron. Of course, we were quite excited to see this.

Bonus:

While this one didn’t quite catch on, it’s still pretty freaking precious. Sadly I could not find the original link to these.

Patience Yields Focus

This is a phrase that pops up quite a bit through the series. Each time delivered from Shiro as though this has been advice he’s given to Keith over and over, probably beginning from back when he worked with Keith in the Garrison. While it’s a lovely and wise quote all on it’s own, it’s most notable because of:

This scene. In S02:E1: Across the Universe, Keith brings this up as he is searching for Shiro to come to his friend’s aid. When he hears Keith use this line, Shiro’s asks “That really stayed with you didn’t it?” His tone and expression implying that this meant quite a lot to him. THIS then led immediately to our next awesome quote:

If it wasn’t for you, my life would’ve been a lot different

Immediately following Shiro’s amused surprise that Keith kept his wisdom with him for so long, Keith replies with this. From what we know, Shiro has been Keith’s mentor, best friend, sole supporter, and guiding light for as long as he’s known him. Even if it had never been meant to be romantic, the sheer warmth in Keith’s tone reveals a deep affection for just how important in his life Shiro has been to him.

This one’s for you, Shiro

Forced to take the reigns of the Black Lion to keep Team Voltron going, Keith utters this vow before he charges in. Giving the touching moments leading to him taking up of mantle of the Head of Voltron, the fact that everything he does in what he rightfully believes is Shiro’s place, he does for Shiro is heartbreakingly touching. No matter what, Shiro is never far from Keith’s thoughts and he guides his actions from his heart.

Shiro is the one person who never gave up on me. I won’t give up on him.

Facing the loss of his best friend yet again, Keith dedicates himself to finding Shiro who had been lost to the vastness of space at the end of the epic showdown with the villain Zarkon from S02:E13- Blackout and said this line in S03:E01 - Changing of the Guard. Heartbroken, Keith sees the other Paladins of Voltron working their hardest to move on even without Shiro at their fore, and in his pain he assumes they’ve forgotten him. When Princess Allura suggests that it is finally time that they look for a new Black Paladin, Keith staunchly refuses to even consider the idea and lashes out. While we’ve seen many hints at just how important Shiro is to Keith, hearing something so honest and direct was very sobering. As this thankfully worked out in the end, it’s less somber than it was, though no less meaningful.

And, at this moment, your friend desperately wants to see you

In S02:E08- The Blade of Marmora, Keith undergoes a trial as the result of the Galra fighters discovering that Keith himself owns a Galra blade having once belonged to one of their own. The trial is as much physically brutal and exhausting as it is mentally so. Watching over the trial, the leader explains to Shiro that the suit Keith wears will put him through another part of the trial, showing his greatest hopes and fears. With this quote, it was revealed just how deeply Keith adored Shiro and just how much he feared abandonment from him. When the false Shiro hologram turns his back on him, Keith is prepared to give up everything to keep him from leaving, even if that means losing his chance to discover his past. The word ‘desperately’ really struck a chord along with the rest of the episode, showing just how unwavering Keith’s commitment to Shiro was. And when the real Shiro came to Keith’s side, prepared to fight off the entirety of the Blades to see his friend to safety, we knew the feeling was mutual.

How many times are you gonna to have to save me before this is over? / As many times as it takes

S03:E06 - Tailing a Comet -When a wounded, exhausted, confused, and demoralized Shiro is finally brought back after his mysterious disappearance he shares another quietly intimate moment with Keith. Checking up on his friend’s wellbeing, Keith tells him that the rest of the team would love to see them when he is able, the silence that follows feeling heavy with words he won’t add to it. When he finally turns to leave, Shiro somberly asks Keith just how many times he will have to save him before their fight is finally over. After a quiet pause, Keith smiles and answers him. “As man times as it takes.”

This was actually the quote that inspired me to finally work over my shyness and make a blog. I had been silently rooting for Sheith in the background for ages. But this just really tipped me over the edge. Keith and Shiro’s relationship was never loudly proclaimed or thrown around with flowers and parades. It was this quiet constant, that was always present. They had been through so much together and through countless battles, loss and struggles, their unwavering and mutual commitment to each other was honestly humbling. And that made this scene / quote all the more special for it.

Beloved Mentor / Nothing was worth Shiro’s pain /Guiding Light

Actually for this, I’d like to turn to one of the awesome meta writers for our fandom @dent-de-leon (I highly recommend following them if you want to see some quality content. I know I’ve really appreciated their insight and jived with what they say!)

Dent-de-leon has an amazing master post that they made with a TON of the interview and inside quotes we’ve gotten from all of the amazing people behind Voltron. As I feel it would be a disservice to the awesome post and the time that went into hunting all those bits plus the sources down, I’d like to just link you to it HERE!

You made a promise to me once. You told me you’d never give up on me

Ohhhh boy, we got a lot from S06:E05 - The Black Paladins. When Kuron, the clone of Shiro who is essentially Shiro in nearly every aspect is controlled by Haggar in an attempt to rid their presence through mutual destruction, we are treated to some of the most heartwrenching scenes we have seen throughout the entire series.

Forced to fight his beloved friend in what could have been a fight to the death, Keith never once gives up on him.

In an attempt to shake Shiro out of his mind control, Keith reminds him of the promise he made to Keith long ago.

I love you

I don’t think I’d ever seen a love triumphs over evil trope so potently built up and displayed. With an absolutely heartbreaking performance, Steven Yeun had most of us staring dumbfounded at the tv/monitor wondering if we had just hallucinated. I personally have watched this over and over and even after the millionth time it still makes my chest ache. At the very end of his rope and facing destruction at the hands of his most beloved friend in the whole universe, Keith bares his heart and we mourned with him just as much as we celebrated something so beautiful.

I will never give up on you, but more importantly, you can’t give up on yourself

When Keith and Shiro are falling to what appears to be their demise, we see something that most of us has been excitedly imagining for years. It’s been clear how important Shiro has been to Keith all his life, especially at the Garrison and there are so many amazing headcanons, comics, and other gorgeous pieces of art depicting what the fans have dreamed up to their lives before Voltron. All we know is that something powerful and meaningful had to happen to inspire so much loyalty and love from someone like Keith. During this scene we see Shiro offer his vow of his own commitment, but also of how important he finds it for Keith to believe in himself as well. This has been a constant theme between the two since the first episode. And seeing this sent most of us into a whole new wave of tears after the initial shock of “I love you.”

You found me

S06:E06 - All Good Things. With multiple threats ended, the ultimate sacrifice of the Castle of Lions to save the universe and the knowledge that Shiro’s spirit has been in the Black Lion and that we’re left with the fading body of the clone that fought Keith, all things seem to be hanging on a thread. But with the clone essentially being Shiro with the exception of the mind control and Shiro’s spirit still without a body, Allura demonstrates the amazing and mystic power of her Altean heritage and recovers Shiro’s spirit, placing it inside the clones body and finally uniting them body, soul, mind, and memories all together into a single entity. Calling back all the way to Season 3 when Keith vehemently vowed that he would find Shiro, to when he breathlessly whispered “you found him” to the Black Lion when Kuron was fading in his dying breaths, Shiro brings everything back full circle. Cradled in Keith’s arms, Shiro leans into him and softly tells him. “You found me.”

Cue the crying all over again.

You’re Everything to Me

And after this long and wonderful journey, we’ve received yet another beautiful quote from the team. In an interview with the Main Story Editor Josh Hamilton today from the Let’s Voltron official podcast. He quotes:

Q: So a lot of people were asking, he says “you’re my brother.” A lot of people were saying is that literal brother or is that just a you know, brotherly figure?

JH: It’s–a lot of the time the words don’t matter, it’s like the way you say it. You know what I mean? It’s like, he says you’re my brother, you know, and when he does eventually say “I love you,” those words matter. It’s like “you know you’re my brother, you’re everything to me.” You know, that brotherly love. So it’s hard for him. But no, literally? I hope I’m not spoiling anything, but no.

—-

I think that says it all here. What a gift. I know that scene in the Black Paladins meant a lot to many of us. But hearing this just left me absolutely speechless. In the best of ways. Tears of victory!

And with the hint that we will be finding out more about Shiro and Keith’s past in the Garrison along with all of the events leading up to here, you can bet we’re all eagerly awaiting what we’ll see in Season 7.

But man, it’s been so, so worth it. For many of us, these two mean so much more than just a simple story. And that in it of itself is quite the gift.

Thank you Anon for inspiring me to put this together. It was a wonderful way to spend my night

#Anonymous #sheith #shiro #keith #sheith quotes #sheith quotes master post #what a long and wonderful journey its been #meta #sheith meta

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sol1056 · 6 years ago

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S7 data cronch pt2: get the hot dogs, the fandom’s on fire

Before I jump into the more tangled datasets, there’s something interesting I want to call out, and that’s the vlogs.

In September of last year, DW released vlogs for Coran, Keith, and Allura. A month later, we got vlogs for Lance, Pidge, and Hunk. Shiro’s vlog finally arrived on June, this year. That final vlog now shows a July date, but when it was first discovered, its posting date was 6/28. (I have no idea why it was changed. Ask @ptw30.)

In the first part, I mentioned audience engagement. The vlogs are a good object lesson. If we take the number of views divided by the number of days since posting, we get an idea of the daily ‘value’ of each vlog.

Shiro clocks in at 6877 views per day, while the next closest, Keith, has 4796 per day. Hey, so maybe that’s just everyone excited after waiting almost a year.

So, how about this graph?

Shiro has 4,293 comments. The next closest are Allura and Hunk, with 692 and 976, respectively. All told, Shiro got 1.5 times as many comments as all the rest of the characters together. Now that is audience engagement.

Alright, now that you’ve got a bit of data on which character clearly gets the fandom engaged and talking, let’s see what else we can learn about S7.

Hop to, behind the cut.

so about that twitter debacle

There’s no way to fully illustrate just how incomprehensibly bonkers twitter was for awhile. I know there’s a toxic side to the fandom that weaponizes twitter, but... in general, the VLD fandom isn’t noisy, compared to other fandoms. Daily counts range from 30-100 tweets. That makes it harder to tell when things go dead quiet, but it sure makes it easy to tell when things explode.

So let’s go back to the Sunday after S7 landed. For this season, I included sentiment analysis. At first I searched on #voltron, then I realized one of the trackers lets me go by keywords, so I did a comparative search on ‘voltron’. Hashtag use seemed to be for being seen by others, while keyword seemed to be more for conversation, reassurance, and reflection.

That’s... pretty strong, for both. And I honestly had never seen a twitter stream get a sentiment analysis as negative as the one on the right. After working my way through 11,889 tweets (from Aug 10th to the 25th), I can tell you one thing for certain.

Everyone was angry about something.

One group, predictably, was angry at being denied their long-awaited affirmation. A second was furious at the queerbaiting; that group overlapped with a third enraged at the Bury Your Gays trope. A fourth dismissed the BYG trope yet were angry at the lack of explicit relationship beyond a single break-up scene; that caused a few flare-ups between the 3rd and 4th groups for the latter treating Shiro as queer purely on his facebook status. A fifth group (oddly, calmer voices, for the most part) was upset at VLD’s treatment of Shiro in general, from his isolation to his tokenization.

On the other end of the spectrum, the majority of positives loved the season but were angry that others didn’t or wouldn’t. A much smaller percentage took their own shots: insisting children don’t need LGBT+ rep, calling LGBT+ fans entitled, telling DW not to pander, or complaining DW/Netflix had mixed politics and entertainment. (There’s an answer to the last one, but that’s for another post.)

I believe the technical term for Aug 10th-25th would be clusterfuck.

going deeper for context

Getting a clearer picture than the donut chart meant considering the context. In other words, for every seemingly-neutral tweet, I’d open the feed, and majority of the time I found threads voicing bitter disappointment, frustration, and hurt. These deeper threads almost never tagged anyone, and they tended to be more nuanced, compared to upper-level mentions loaded with easily-classed negative or positive keywords.

Here’s a snapshot of the twitter stream on August 10th, which includes metrics for those deeper contextual threads.

There’s just no way to spin that much of a backlash. By the end of the first day of release, the signs were already there that --- at least as far as the majority of the internet-based fandom was concerned --- S7 was an unmitigated disaster.

it’s just twitter, no one’s paying attention

That sounds like something a Boomer-aged exec might say. They’d also be wrong (not to mention ignorant).

Note: I used two different analysis apps. Both were rather blunt-force, rating “S7 wasn’t half bad” or “brutal but what I wanted” as negative, while "go to hell, I loved VLD but not anymore" was rated positive. One of the two apps let me re-evaluate, but it only allowed for negative-neutral-positive. (Lesson learned: set up a twitter scrape ahead of time, so I can run it all against a good AI.)

For this part, I used the second tracker and manually evaluated the values for ‘voltron’ mentions. Unfortunately, I had to rely on the tracker’s value for most non-English tweets. I designated ‘positive’ for explicitly pro-S7, and ‘negative’ explicitly con-S7. For any mentions that were ambiguous, incoherent, or personally-directed, I defaulted to neutral. My goal was to measure who was or wasn’t happy with the season itself, and not attacks on or support for the staff, DW, Netflix, or other people in the fandom.

With that madness done, here’s the entirety of August.

On the day of release, a total of 1853 mentions created a social media reach of 1.46 million. My next question was: is this low-influencer unhappiness vs high-influencer happiness, vice versa, or something else? This next chart is the data filtered down to influencers with a score of 7 or above (based on followers, retweets, and replies).

That’s 78 negative mentions, 16 positive, and the remainder neutral. All told, 194 mentions had a social media reach of 1.36 million. That’s a lot considering the voltron keyword usually has a social media reach of 50K, tops.

This was a groundswell reaction. The reach was driven by big voices, but the bulk were individuals unhappy for any of a variety of reasons. Any apology --- after four days of fever pitch --- was going to have an uphill fight to calm the crowd, no matter how gracefully it was written.

On the 14th -- when news outlets began reacting to JDS’ apology -- we got a second spike. 1573 mentions with a social media reach of 1.3 million; the new megaphones in the stream were news outlets promoting articles. (Also, most of their tweets are strongly click-bait in tone, compared to the actual article titles.)

If you googled ‘voltron legendary defender’ on the 14th, you got these results:

Voltron Showrunner Apologizes to Fans Following Outrage over Gay Character’s Storyline [Syfy Wire]

Voltron Showrunner Pens Open Apology Letter [The Mary Sue]

Voltron Showrunner Apologizes for Series' Handling of Gay Relationship {CBR}

Voltron's Complicated, Imperfect LGBQT Representation Is Tearing the Fandom Apart [In-Depth-Gizmodo]

Joaquim Dos Santos Shares Letter About Voltron Queer Representation [The Geekiary]

The ‘Voltron’ Showrunner Apologized For Making a Mess of the Show’s Gay Representation [Hornet]

Of course, Josh Keaton got sent out to calm the anger, too.

'Voltron' Star Josh Keaton On Season 7, Shiro's Sexuality, and How a Leader Grieves [Comicbook.com]

Shiro Voice Actor Responds to 'Voltron' Season 7 Controversy [Inverse]

Exclusive: Josh Keaton talks 'Voltron' season 7, Shiro's new arc, love and loss [Hypable]

You had to scroll past all that before you could get to anything remotely like a positive news item (and nowhere near the usual post-release deluge of compliments to the creators).

On Aug 15th, more articles:

Voltron: Legendary Defender’s Showrunner Offers a Genuine Apology to the Fandom [Gizmodo]

Voltron's Complicated, Imperfect LGBQT Representation Is Tearing The Fandom Apart [Kotaku Australia] (reprint)

Either these were latecomers, or DW was pulling out all the stops to hit every possible venue. Didn’t matter; the furor wasn’t dying down. Josh wasn’t sent out again, either. DW may’ve realized that ship had sailed (so to speak).

On Aug 16th, these articles appeared:

Voltron creator addresses fans over season 7's queerbaiting controversy [Polygon]

How “Voltron: Legendary Defender” Queerbaited Its Fans [NewNowNext]

Voltron showrunner apologises to fans after backlash over treatment of gay character [DigitalSpy]

Voltron: Legendary Defender showrunner apologises to fans after killing off gay character [PinkNews]

Why 'Voltron' fans are furious after season 7 [The Daily Dot]

Voltron Showrunner Apologizes for Season 7's Treatment of Gay Couple [ScreenRant]

'Voltron' Shiro: Stop Preemptively Outing Gay Characters To Generate Buzz [Inverse]

And it kept going through Aug 17, 2018.

Voltron: Legendary Defender Showrunner Joaquim Dos Santos Apologizes For Alleged Queer-bating Of Fans Over Handling Of Shiro’s Sexual Orientation [Inside Pulse]

Who's Sorry This Week? Lindsay Lohan, Sarah Huckabee Sanders and other public apologies [Mic]

Meanwhile, as of the 18th, the predictive algorithm for #voltron (the actual hashtag) was estimating +6% for the upcoming week, and +6% for the month. Not even half what S6 had in its first week after broadcast, but remember, the majority of S7′s traffic wasn’t happening on the hashtag. It was happening in mentions.

You might think from the above that things quieted by the 19th. You’d be wrong. It’s still going on. Keep in mind these pie charts are cumulative by month. On the left are the totals through the morning of Aug 22; on the right, the totals through the afternoon of Aug 25.

Midday on the 22nd, we had another spike, one large enough to offset that these are monthly totals, not daily. (The most likely culprit is the DW marketing gif that showed the scene where Adam dies, thus kicking the hornet’s nest all over again.)

As we entered the third week, the predictive algorithm for #voltron dropped to -1% for the month, and -5% for the week; for #vld, it’s -2% for the month and -6% for the week.

In fact, almost every related hashtag is predicted to drop in popularity and use over the next week or beyond. That includes:

voltronlegendarydefender, -2%

keithkogane, -8%

keith, -3%

shiro, -9%

lance, -6%

lancemcclain, -1%

takashishirogane, -20%

allura, -5%

princessallura, -10%

hunkgarrett, -6%

lotor, -4%

katieholt, -5%

Even ship names:

klance, -2%

shadam, -8%

adashi, -3%

plance, -2%

pidgance, -5%

sheith, -2%

lotura, -10%

kallura, -1%

The exceptions? allurance (4%) and pidge (1%).

It took a bombshell EP interview to knock S6 off its upward rise. This time around, the fall looks more like people tiring of the fight and checking out.

one more part coming

Thanks to the additional manipulations I did on twitter this season, this section took more words (and I cut it down from walking you through every agonizing step, no need to thank me for sparing you). I’ve also added a new dataset, and that pushed the total word count beyond even my long limit.

I’ve broken the last part out, where i’ll cover the long-term impact and possible fallout of S7.

#vld #voltron #doing the data cronch #sol thinks about stuff

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fuckyeahshirogane · 6 years ago

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In season 7 we start off with seeing the conclusion of the relationship between Shiro and Adam, when Shiro decides to go on the Kerberos mission. Later on in the season, when the Galra invade Earth, Adam is part of the first wave of attacks, and he tragically loses his life. We do get to see Shiro react to that, briefly at the memorial, and in his later speech, but how difficult was that for you to play?

JK: We’ve all been in situations where we are forced to make a choice, which is going to be a pivotal choice. We may not know it at the time, how pivotal it’s going to be in our lives, and how it’s going to define our lives, but we all have to make these choices. And there’s always going to be that voice in your head [saying], “did I make the right one? Did I make the right choice? Was this the right thing to do?”

And whether or not he thought he was going to get back together with Adam and have this great reunion, or whether he had already moved on, no matter what, when you’re that close to somebody, knowing that they’re no longer there, knowing that they are gone, knowing they’ve died, is a huge thing. Whether or not you’ve ended the relationship. Because the relationship was in such a place where it was such a big deal to both of them. And it would have been a life-long relationship, had Shiro not gone, had he not had a disease.

There are so many things that could have changed the direction of how it all ended up. And I’m sure that at some point Shiro probably questions his own actions, possibly blames himself. But that’s life. Things like this do happen. There isn’t always a happy ending for everybody.

And in terms of just getting myself to get to that point, as an actor you tend to try to use things from your own life. Certain parts of my, you know, kind of like your toolbox. Certain moments that I use to get me to a certain place, I keep private, and this one will probably be no exception. But, that being said, I do use things from my own life to get myself to that place. And at the end of the day, I am not a gay man, but I do understand love. And I do understand loss. And I think that those are universal. That’s not something that, because you’re gay, you’re going to love differently than a heterosexual person. I think that love is love. And what is true to me, in terms of how I would have felt had this happened to me, that would also be true to Shiro. There’s no difference in that circumstance. It’s love. And being to be able to really get myself into that place, when you think about the loss, and start kind of asking yourself the same questions that you think Shiro would have asked himself. It does put you in an emotional place. It does get you to that place where I would imagine Shiro would be. In that place where he’s at at the monument, feeling for the first time that Adam’s not there anymore.

Josh Keaton interview of Shiro and his thoughts

#shiro #takashi shirogane #interview #long post #vld7 spoilers #josh keaton #voltron

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nersharkii-blog · 6 years ago

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Did DreamWorks have a role to play in the whole Shadam fiasco?

I’m sure if you’ve been following Voltron, you’ll have seen the 7th season and know about the disarray in the fandom involving the representation of Shiro and his sexuality on the show. If not, click away! Right now is your spoiler warning.

So at Comic Con and on Twitter, it was confirmed that Shiro was a gay character. It was also revealed he had a significant other, Adam.

I’m going to go through a summary of these events very quickly for your sake: The first episode involves a series of flashbacks that show Shiro talking to a man named Adam. They discuss for a very short amount of time whether Shiro would be going on the Kerberos mission or not, and Adam leaves very disgruntled. We later see him in the flashbacks of The Last Stand: Part 1. In one of these flashbacks, he dies due to being shot down by a Galra ship.

In the show, Shiro’s relationship with Adam was very vague and could be percieved as a completely platonic relationship.

A large chunk of the fanbase found this disappointing after being promised LGBT representation, but that’s for another post. This post is for whether DreamWorks had a role to play in this.

I’ve been seeing a lot of posts and petitions popping up, trying to convince DreamWorks to allow the writers of Voltron to write what they wish(LGBT rep) without having a say in it. However, I’ve been having a hard time finding hard evidence to support the fact that they were involved in the vagueness.

Now I’d like to say, if they were involved, I would not be very surprised.

Lately, DreamWorks hasn’t been impressing me. Or ever. The movie that got me really into it was the first How To Train Your Dragon. It was amazing, beautiful, showed great messages, and depicted a beautiful friendship between Hiccup and Toothless. However, the recent movies have been questionable at times. If you want to read more about the controversy with their new dragon, read more at this article: https://www.dailydot.com/parsec/how-to-train-your-dragon-light-fury-sexist/

Now, DreamWorks hasn’t really showcased any LGBT characters(and I hear you HTTYD fans, Gobber was confirmed gay by his voice actor out of the movie, but nothing he did or say in the movie was any sort of LGBT rep). They have movies of love between women and bees, ogres and women, and even the love between a dragon and a donkey. But no LGBT love. And correct me if I’m wrong, but I hardly see any POC characters in their movies. Their first animated black character was Tip in Home, released only 3 years ago in 2015. Not to mention they often hid her in promos, which you can read about here: https://bglh-marketplace.com/2015/03/representation-matters-so-why-is-dreamworks-hiding-their-first-black-main-character/

But onto evidence that they played a role in the vagueness of Shiro’s sexuality:

I’ve only been digging for a couple hours, and I can’t find much. Most of what I’ve found are fans saying a cast member confirmed it, and the closest thing I could find was this in an interview with Inverse and Josh Keaton:

“I don’t really know all of the going-ons behind the scenes,” Keaton carefully makes clear to Inverse, “but it almost wasn’t going to happen.” Alternate takes of Shiro and Adam talking to each other were recorded that were way less explicit about their relationship. “We had to record other stuff to make it more vague,” Keaton says.

So, in short, Josh Keaton didn’t know what was going on. He was just told to record more lines to make it vague.

It is suspicious that they had to record new dialogue, but that’s not exactly proof that the villain here was DreamWorks itself. He also says this:

“Everybody came together because it was something all of us felt was important to see and to have. Even the PR people at DreamWorks helped a lot. Everybody was on the same page.”

At first, I stopped, and thought that this was it. The DreamWorks staff helped. But those were only the public relations staff, which are in charge of managing relations between a company and its audience. And correct me if I’m wrong, a second time, but they aren’t in charge of core decision making in films.

The whole interview is here: https://www.inverse.com/article/47990-voltron-legendary-defender-season-7-netflix-shiro-almost-was-not-gay

Also, as an ending to this post, please don’t attack the cast. Most of them aren’t even involved in decision making. Verbal abuse and threats are not ways to solve any problem. Remember that they are people with dreams just like us.

But the cast and crew of Voltron never gave up, knowing full well what it meant to have a character like Shiro be gay in an all-ages, action-adventure cartoon. “All of us were really clamoring for it,” he says. “We were like, this is important, we can’t just water it down. I was really upset about it. Bex [Taylor-Klaus] was really upset about it.”

I want this post to be a thread for this topic if anyone finds any more hard evidence on this topic before they put a lot of work into things that may not help. Please add on more info or correct mine if there’s anything to add or fix.

#voltron #voltron: legendary defender #netflix #takashi shirogane #adam #shadam #queerbaiting #dreamworks #lgbt #lgbtactivism #activism #i spent hours on this

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xthis-rebelle · 7 years ago

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Josh Keaton should not have to post this in the first place.

It saddens me really that the VLD fandom takes it to this level; harassing Josh, Steven, Jeremy (especially Jeremy), Bex, Rhys, Tyler, Kimberley and Neil and their loved ones over what? Some stupid ship? Guys, come on, shipping is fun, but there are boundaries. And this, this is crossing many of them. Making threats against persons who literally have nothing to do with any of this is not cool. From the moment I joined this fandom, I knew it was bad, but it never occured to me that things were this bad. Persons who go around, calling themselves 'antis' and harassing people, bullying people on anon, 'advocating' for a ship, preaching 'pedophilia', blurring the lines between fiction and reality? That's not something heroic. And it's not something anyone should be encouraging. Here in the VLD fandom, I thought that it was safe for me to assume that we are mature adults. I guess I was wrong, because clearly, some of us don't handle things in a mature way. And Josh's wife and children are paying the price for that immaturity. And seeing this post, reading this post, it truly disgusts me.

Some of us forget that Josh owes us nothing. In fact none of the VA's do. But still, they go out of their way to make us feel like this fandom is worth being in. They like our stuff, they humour us by going along with our jokes, Josh especially. The fandom takes it too far with these poor VA's and the producers. Josh didn't have to allow thousands of teenagers around the world to call him our 'space dad' (or he wouldn't have basically adopted thousands of teenagers around the world). He didn't have to post things that make us laugh, little bits of advice, he didn't have to go out of his way to tweet dad jokes, to like the content we create, nor did he have to post those videos about him cooking, or his daily life, and he didn't even have to do that 'you're welcome' video because we couldn't get a musical episode.

But he did. Because he's a great, wonderful amazing person. And we couldn't have asked for a better Shiro. Don't forget that without the VA's, none of this would be possible. They give our beloved characters a voice, a personality, and I dunno about you guys, but I'm always greatful for anything they post.

So Josh @joshkeaton , on behalf of the good side of the VLD fandom, I'm sorry. It would seem as though some of us seem to forget that this is a 7+ show that deals with teenagers in space fighting a war, and romance is not on the front burner. I'm sorry these people are doing this to you and thank you for being brave and speaking out against it.

And to anyone who follows me and considers themselves an 'anti', VLD or otherwise, I respectfully ask you not to follow me, and to unfollow if you in fact, follow me. I will not have nor will I tolerate this type of negativity on my blog. No offense to anyone, but again, I will not stand for this, especially where a man's wife and young children are concerned.

Tldr; y'all toxic fandom members need to lay the fuck off the Voltron Voice Actors. And if any anti's are following me, I ask that you hit the unfollow button. Thank you.

Re: Shipping

I’m kind of between a rock and a hard place here. Back when I said what I said, there were no canon ages. And when we were recording those episodes in the two years before this all went down, it had always been “five teenagers.”

Obviously as the story has gone on and things have evolved over production, the ages have been established and I do think that the age gap (minor with a 25 year old) at this point in their lives is problematic in canon. But my train of thought was that it would just be another detail that could be changed like anyone would do in their own headcanon. This somehow got misinterpreted as me condoning predatory ships which I’ve said I do not support.

I don’t know what the right answer is here. Will there be people who specifically focus on the gross aspects of canon age shaladin and make their story/art about that? Unfortunately, yes. But should others be bullied or threatened if they use the characters in their own way and reimagine them in a not gross or illegal way? I don’t believe they should.

I don’t know what the limits or boundaries are or what they should be. I’m not the Canon King. My involvement in shipping has been to come up with bad pun names for stuff that was on Tumblr before the show even started airing. I don’t ship anything, yet somehow I’m the patron saint for some shippers, and literally Hitler to others.

I realize that my “learn the definition” remarks were unnecessarily combative and crass. I regret making them. 100%. No excuses, it was a shit thing to say. I don’t condone problematic age gaps or predatory ships and I apologize for my insensitive remarks, and I’m sorry I even inserted myself into this discourse. I realize that there’s nothing I can say that will satisfy everyone and I really just wish everyone would get along.

I’m removing myself from ship talk completely. Threats have been made to myself, my wife, and my young children by anon Tumblr cowards on burner accounts. I realize that they’re extremes and not representative of that ship but some of y'all are exhausting and I hope you find some positivity in your lives. Those who brought this up respectfully on my insta - thanks for your passionate yet respectful messages. I feel I owed you a proper response.

I’m not leaving the fandom. The overwhelming majority of you have been wonderful and I’ll still do plenty of SpaceDad stuff. But ix-nay on the ipping-shay. I’m old and tired.

Edit: If you harassed me, threatened me, or harass/bully other people because of ships, this is not a “win” for you. My apologies are for any CSA survivors I offended with what I said. Not for you.

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