Welcome To My Twisted Grind

Pre-airing In May 2016, I reblogged a post to my main blog—a trailer for Netflix's new original animated series, Voltron: Legendary Defender. I was interested in it right away, being a fan of Studio Mir's past work and learning that the project had a few people on the production staff who had been involved in Legend of Korra, another Mir production that I was a fan of that had ended about a year and a half prior. I didn't know much about Voltron going in, but it looked to be an action show with a mostly male cast, and being the dirty slash shipper I always have been, I figured I might even get a decent pairing out of it. But it wasn't just about shipping. Legend of Korra had brought us korrasami, one of the first queer couples to appear in Western children's animation, and cartoons like Steven Universe and Adventure Time were pushing the envelope even further. I was curious if Voltron would follow suit and deliver something similar. Moreover, I believed that it was past time to see a canon relationship between two men in a series like this, though I had no idea if we'd be lucky enough to see such a relationship cultivate on screen, or whether or not it would be between two of the leads. Still, I was pretty hopeful, as were many others, right from the start.

Season 1 Season 1 dropped on June 10th. I watched it, fell in love instantly, and then turned to Tumblr looking for all that great fan content: edits, art, theories, and, of course, shipping. The fandom was already growing rapidly, and many of the showrunners, artists, and voice actors even had Tumblr accounts of their own. It was really cool being able to share in their enthusiasm, especially because they seemed to have such a positive attitude, even about the gay ships. I think this further fueled the hope that there might eventually be some canon "representation".

I shipped sheith from the beginning. Keith—who turned out to be my favorite—was clearly very dedicated to Shiro, and knowing that they had some kind of shared history was intriguing. While Keith/Lance was already shaping up to be the more popular pairing, Shiro's voice actor seemed enthusiastic about Shiro/Keith, posting to his Tumblr that he had noticed some people were already shipping the two and coining the ship name "sheith". The sheith fans also noticed the crew liking a lot of shippy S/K fan art. One of the art directors posted his own art of Shiro with a fond look and the line "Shiro loves you baby", tagging it "#he is looking at keith". I kept feeling that there was this subtle (or not so subtle) nod toward sheith from the staff, and while they probably thought that any ship was acceptable (again, merely engaging with the fan's excitement), perhaps they had assumed that sheith would be the big one? The true nature of Shiro and Keith's relationship was a bit of a mystery in season 1, but it was clear they shared a unique bond compared to the other characters. As the sheith ship gained popularity, some who preferred other pairings sought ways to turn people away from it. Before the month was out, "age discourse" had already popped up, with many fans positing that Shiro was much older than the other paladins, though no one actually knew his actual age at that point. Early promotional material had described the paladins as "five teenagers" and I took that at face value. At the time, my personal estimate was that Shiro must have been nineteen while the others were sixteen or seventeen. We at least had Pidge's canonical age being fifteen, and knew that the others couldn't have been younger than she was (though we still didn't exactly know the age range for Galaxy Garrison students). I figured that Shiro and Keith were just a few years apart at most and saw absolutely zero issue with shipping them, especially when even the staff seemed so pro-sheith.

A few weeks later, in July, the age gap discourse came back stronger than ever when a fan claimed that the staff had told them at San Diego Comic Con that Shiro was twenty-five years old. This seemed to come from nowhere and many people questioned the legitimacy of the statement, until the fan went back to ask again, this time recording the writers stating that "Shiro is an adult" while the other paladins are "not adults" with "late teens" being a "safe zone". I recall this feeling pretty harrowing at the time. Not because it suddenly made the ship unacceptable to me, but because I knew the harassment from "antis" was only going to get worse than it already had been. I also figured an age gap like this meant that, even if Shiro and Keith could still exist as a fanon ship, there was little hope that they could be the canon m/m couple I had been waiting for. If there was ever an instance I could say I felt a bit "queerbaited" it was then, but I moved on from that thought and kept enjoying sheith in my own little corner with fellow fans.

Season 2-6 From there, the discourse evolved somewhat. With the new age range revealed, it was determined that the Galaxy Garrison must have been some kind of post-high school program. All the paladins (minus Pidge, who we knew faked her identity, anyway) were late teens, meaning they were eighteen or nineteen. Why would it matter if Shiro was in his mid-twenties if Keith, too, was a legal adult? But by season 2, antis had found new ammunition when Keith referred to Shiro as a "brother", insisting that the two men must have been related. Still, since it couldn't be proven they were actual relatives, sheith shippers mostly ignored this one (especially when the episode where it happened gave us so much shipping fuel!) Slash shippers have a long history of enjoying "brothers-in-arms" type pairings, after all.

Season 3 was when the writing began to feel a little different, possibly even "off". There was already a lot going on with Keith being part alien, the paladins switching lions, Lotor's complicated characterization, and Shiro clone theories. But I wasn't critical of any of this at the time, still trusting that everything was going to pan out beautifully by the show's end. Yeah...

Time went on, a season (or essentially 'half season') dropping every few months or so. Even though the staff had earlier expressed interest in having some "queer representation" in VLD, it remained unclear exactly where it would come from. Lance was consistently pining for girls, usually Allura. Even if Keith loved Shiro, Shiro was likely too old for that to fly in a kid's cartoon. Pidge wasn't trans. We didn't know much about the other paladin's preferences and that stuff didn't really matter anyway because, at the end of the day, this was an action sci-fi show created to sell robot toys to kids. If there was going to be any lgbt+ content at all, it'd probably be minimal at best.

On the fandom side, the anti-sheith folks were loud as ever. Shiro and Pidge's voice actors were both harassed for pro-ship statements and, from there, the staff largely stopped speaking on the topic unless it was brought up at conventions or during interviews. I managed to mostly avoid drama on my own blog, maintaining a rule for myself to not engage in that kind of discourse. I didn't really have anything against the Keith/Lance ship, anyway, it just wasn't for me. I also knew that L/K would never become canon, so I had no reason to really think about it. I muted some tags and, relying on trusted blogs that I followed (including @the-sheith-tag, which filtered out all the hate and discourse), I proceeded to enjoy myself as any fan should. As new seasons came out, I continued to love the show (other than some minor nitpicks here and there). Shiro and Keith always had good moments (I ADORED the theme of Keith always being there to save Shiro), and I loved the rest of the characters and felt invested in their plights, as well (Pidge, especially).

Season 7 In July 2018, Voltron premiered season 7, episode 1 at SDCC. This was actually a pretty exciting time for sheith shippers, as this episode finally revealed Shiro and Keith's backstory. It turned out that Shiro had recruited Keith when he was a teenager, recognizing his potential as a pilot. This flashback-heavy episode also confirmed that Shiro was gay by showing a scene of him breaking up with his then-boyfriend, Adam. When Adam told Shiro (who was also revealed to have a terminal illness) to choose between the Kerberos mission and him, Shiro ultimately picked to go to space. Adam was contrasted narratively with Keith, who—in the episode's present timeline—had been refusing to give up on a comatose Shiro. This episode also brought us the beloved "we saved each other" line.

We had to wait a little longer to get the rest of the season, but my sheith heart was full. Much of the fandom, though, was going insane over the new character, Adam. Even though he hadn't treated the terminally ill Shiro with much sympathy in their flashback scene, this didn't stop many people from assuming that he and Shiro were going to get back together when Shiro returned to earth and, from there, the "shadam" ship was born. I never gravitated toward the ship, myself, seeing it as mostly just another excuse to pull Shiro away from Keith. Ironically, the scene itself had seemed to show the exact opposite: while Adam had given up on Shiro, Keith continued to fight for him. I even had an inkling that Adam might die before the series was over, though I didn't actually want that, as Shiro had suffered enough already (they may have been broken up, but I figured Shiro still cared about the guy).

My theory proved true, though. Season 7 dropped in early August, and Adam had very little screen time before perishing in a battle scene. Of course, fans were livid at this blatant example of the "bury your gays" trope, and while I didn't like it, either, I was still pretty happy that Shiro, one of the MAIN characters, had actually turned out to be canonically gay. But Shiro as a character was beginning to become... troubling. The writers didn't seem to know what to do with him after the clone reveal, and had even admitted they were originally intending to kill Shiro off prior to him becaming popular (I assume this was before they decided to make him gay, but then that makes him being gay seem like a detail they tacked on to make him more interesting/quell the fandom that was demanding representation...which also isn't great). Shiro didn't even get to defeat his personal enemy, Sendak, near the end of the season, and Keith instead swooped in for the final strike. As much as I loved the theme of Keith saving Shiro again and again over the course of the story, I did have mixed feelings about this moment. It just felt like Shiro didn't have much autonomy. I thought it would ultimately be okay, though, as long as Shiro finally got to save Keith at some point in the final season.

Season 8 Speaking of the final season. S08 was originally scheduled for November 14th, 2028, but was pushed another month to December 14th, instead. The seasons were coming out so fast that I don't really blame the production crew for needing some extra time, but this did lead to some theories about them "changing" some details in the final season, because it was a mess. Realistically, I'm not sure how much could have actually been changed before airing. It takes a long time to animate even a single scene, but then again, changes could still be made by editing footage, rerecording voice-overs, and redoing bits of animation in-house. We know for a fact that the epilogue slideshow was a last-second addition. Even if the staff hadn't been open about it, early links showed Shiro getting married to a completely different man than the one they ended up putting in the scene. But it wasn't just the slideshow; the whole season was riddled with issues. Many plot threads were not tied up properly, and the endings given to most of the cast just felt off (or downright offensive, especially in the case of Allura). I was extremely disappointed that Shiro and Keith's friendship was just straight-up not acknowledged, which seemed pretty suspicious given how their relationship had been a pivotal point of every previous season. I had been hoping for Shiro to protect Keith for once, and assumed that if Team Voltron was to disband, Shiro and Keith would at least stay together. I wasn't expecting anything quite as romance-coded as the Legend of Korra ending, but perhaps leaning in that direction, a promise that Shiro and Keith would always remain at each other's side. Because, again, their relationship and loyalty toward each other had been a huge focus of the series. It had partially culminated in season 7, when Keith fought Shiro's clone and then rescued Shiro's spirit from inside the black lion, but there was never any further discussion, no acknowledgement from Shiro about what Keith had done for him. There was a part in season 8 where Shiro orders the crew to spend the day with their loved ones, as it may be their last night on earth. Keith does get a brief bonding moment with Lance to talk about Lance's upcoming date with Allura, and it seemed fitting that he would get a similar moment with Shiro, as well, but no such moment came. The rest of the episode was mostly focused on Lance and Allura finally crossing the boundary from friendship to romance, though I thought it seemed strange that they would kiss in the first episode of the season instead of the last (hindsight is twenty-twenty, in this case). I kept waiting for Keith and Shiro to share even just one worthwhile scene, and grew increasingly confused when episode after episode didn't have them speaking a word to each other. The season's writing seemed unusually bad, in general, which had me worried. And while there's no point recounting every disastrous choice this season made, every character assassination and unresolved plot thread, it's safe to say that I could not have been more disappointed. Season 8 put me off of Voltron as a whole for a long time, but I never lost my love for sheith. To this day, it remains one of my favorite ships of any series. 

Aftermath For months after the season ended, the fandom was up in arms. None of our favorite characters had a satisfying ending (except for maybe Pidge, whose arc had already resolved a couple of seasons prior). Most would probably have agreed that Allura's ending was the worst, and there was much discussion regarding her "sacrifice". Lotor's cruel fate was also a point of discussion, as many believed he deserved a redemption arc. Season 8 had also made it clearer than ever that the writers just didn't know what to do with Shiro, up to and including marrying him off to a nameless character in the epilogue sequence (seemingly for no other reason than to try to make up for the Adam blunder). Some of the post-season fandom discussion was actually cathartic, not just for the scathing criticisms but also for the various optimistic "fix-it" scenarios put out by the fandom's many creatives. Today These days, Voltron gets a lot of credit for being responsible for the rise of "antiship culture", and that's an assertion that I can't dispute, nor do I even really disagree. I believe there had been some similar 'activism-based' discourse sprouting up in fandoms such as Steven Universe (which, as we may recall, started its run a couple of years before Voltron) and possibly other fandoms that I wasn't involved in. Western animation was thriving on Tumblr right alongside social justice politics, so it's no wonder that these fandoms became rife with intense discussion. Not all of it was bad. The call for better queer representation, the reexamination of concepts such as "Mary Sue", the rejection of potentially harmful cliches regarding race and gender—I would argue many of these discussions were significant, even necessary, at the time. Even much of the criticism of Voltron's writing was fair. But Voltron was the first fandom I had ever been in where people would try to make ethical arguments against certain ships, or paint the shippers themselves as immoral or even criminal for liking those ships. Ship wars weren't anything new, but "antis" now had a new and quite effective weapon to exploit, and exploit it they did. Ten years later, liking any ship deemed a "proship" can lead to harassment and callout posts. People attempting to make money on their art are forced to limit what ships they draw or even interact with, and sometimes communities feel fractured, split between the "regular fans" and the "freaks" (contrary to the shipping culture I grew up with, where we were ALL the freaks).

Voltron had been the last big fandom I was a part of, but getting into another one more recently, I can see that 'anti culture' has only spread as younger fans enter these spaces. Voltron still has a fandom, too, and when I poke my head in, I often see people complaining about sheith. This isn't surprising, but they're also treating the shippers themselves more like diseased pariahs than ever before. I always feel befuddled. Not just because of the whole "it's literally fiction, why do you care so much", but if we're really putting that much stock in a ship's 'problematic' elements, sheith really doesn't have that many! It's a ship between two adults who deeply care about each other, and that's the axis on which most fans have engaged with it. Fandom also feels very reactionary now, where in the past it was more exploratory. A lot of anime fandoms especially felt this way when Japanese media was much newer in the West. Instead of responding to strange new ideas with loud negativity, people were more curious. If they hadn't been open-minded back then, slash shipping might never have taken off here at all. I've been a slash shipper for a long time, so I'm very happy that it was embraced in the West as internet fandom culture came to prominence. The rise of anti culture has felt like a gigantic step backward. I don't need to delve too much into my thoughts on that, but reflecting on Voltron after all these years is a reminder of when and how it all started. On the whole, the show and its characters deserved better. The cast and crew did, too. And yes, the sheith shippers also deserved better!

Despite everything, though, I still look back on my time with Voltron fondly. It was a big part of my life for years, and I met some awesome people in this fandom, saw so much amazing fan content, and genuinely enjoyed *most* of the series. I left a ton of stuff out while writing this post, but I hope that anyone who read it found it interesting or somehow insightful. Maybe it even brought back some memories for you, too! Happy ten years!