the pink paladin

voltron aesthetics   -   princess   allura

applications for voltron secret santa 2017 are now open!

how this works is you’ll be assigned another tumblr user to make a gift for throughout the month of december, then from the 23rd to the 25th, everyone will post the gifts they made for their assigned person! 

❆ applications open today (nov. 21st) and will close by nov. 29th, as soon as you have gotten your partner, you will have from then to make them their gift. on dec. 23rd, you can start posting! you will have til dec. 25th to post it. there will be a checkup on dec. 13th to see your progress, as well as a chance to drop out if you dont think you can make the deadline. its recommended you have started by that point.

❆ there will be no shaladin/piladin/galra x paladin ships allowed. this event is open to the entire fandom, but given how uncomfortable people are with those ships, they will be banned completely to make this event as safe as possible.

❆ your gift can be anything! art, writing, edits, playlists, moodboards, etc., just make sure it relates to voltron and your partners interests, and that you keep it sfw.

❆ please dont sign up if you know you cant meet the deadline. if something comes up thats unexpected, please tell us, and we’ll try our best to arrange an extension. 

❆ tag your gift with #vldss17 and tag us so we can reblog it wkhen its been posted! also, dont forget to tag your partner.

❆ remember! dont reveal who you are to your partner, it takes away the fun of the event :).

❆ please respect your partner and be kind!

that should be everything, if you would like to sign up, fill out the application! if you have any questions please check our faq, and if its not answered there, then feel free to send us an ask and one of our mods will help you! have fun ♡.

vld icons || icon page

okay first off, thanks @allura-of-altea for helping me sort this out bc i wasn’t able to really think about this all the way and hd really pulled through for me here

anyway, switching allura and lance’s lions would be bad for both of their characters.

for lance, it takes away a lot of important development he’s made throughout seasons 3 and 4. he’s opened up a lot and taken on a lot more responsibility by becoming voltron’s right hand. he’s more comfortable questioning the leader (both keith and shiro), and he’s taken on a very supportive role at the same time. while he was in the blue lion, he didn’t really have that chance. no one took him seriously, and when he tried to question people’s authority, they ignored him. but now, he’s in a position where his opinions are heard, and he’s more confident in saying them! his entire speech about allura as the heart of voltron really shows how much he’s grown as a character by becoming the red paladin.

and for allura, putting her in the red lion wouldn’t lead to her growth at all. her character arc is all about becoming vulnerable, and by keeping her in a position with a lot of responsibilities, she’d never let herself open up and be vulnerable.

allura’s biggest flaw is in the way she carries everyone’s burdens on her shoulders. and she does this with a smile, without letting anyone know what’s going on. when alfor tells her in s1e1 that she has to be willing to sacrifice everything, she internalizes that. she starts off the series completely unwilling to show weakness in front of anyone. even now, the only times we see her break down are in private. and when she comes back? she pretends everything is fine.

her arc starts as “princess allura” and as “the daughter of alfor.” she’s not just allura. she feels like she has to honor her father and continue her father’s legacy by fighting against zarkon. this is the reason she wants to pilot the red lion. she wants to follow in alfor’s footsteps. and this is exactly why piloting the red lion would have been bad for her.

because if she continues following alfor, then she never grows or develops. so instead, she goes in the blue lion, and she’s immediately placed out of her comfort zone. blue shuts down and won’t communicate with her until she admits her own weakness and her own vulnerability. until she lets down her walls for blue. if allura’s greatest flaw is that she refuses to be vulnerable, then blue takes that flaw and crushes it in her maw.

the blue lion is a nurturer, who is meant to foster greatness in her paladin. allura can’t achieve her potential until she stops clinging to her father and his legacy. and by piloting the blue lion, she’s able to start doing that.

also, being in the blue lion puts her in a more supportive position, rather than a commanding position, which is the role of red paladin (as the right hand). allura as the blue paladin takes away responsibility from her, which she desperately needs in order for her to loosen up. it lets her be a kid instead of a soldier, and she’s able to let actual adults (coran and shiro) take on the more daunting command tasks.

and by contrast, what lance needed was more responsibility. by putting him in red, he gets more power and more command, which gives him the confidence he needs for his own growth. we all saw how much he wanted to pilot the black lion; he craves responsibility. so putting him in the red lion is a huge step in that direction. it also opens the door for him getting even more responsibility, like possibly becoming the black paladin?

for now, allura and lance are exactly where they need to be for their character arcs. they’re growing and developing and coming into the heroes they were meant to be. allura’s learning that she doesn’t have to control everything herself. lance is learning that his opinions are valuable and important.

moodboard: princess allura

maybe that episode was a metaphor for allura’s emotional growth guys, i mean it was in a way obv, but by that i mean

in ‘rebirth’ allura might have been more set off by saving the balmerans than she let be known, you know. like that was such a direct callback to the very trauma she faced losing her own homeworld ??? like, in the moment, she took charge. but right after, her mind seems lost a little bit. like, i have said once or twice that i theorize allura acting so odd in ‘crystal venom’ could have everything to do with 1. our stargirl is beautiful blessed and neurodivergent or 2. whatever tainted the castle’s crystal affected allura as well because she is magically connected to it. but what if also it was the fact that saving the balmera sent allura into such a terrible place emotionally, the castle was actually reacting to her emotional state?

i mean. the castle traps lance in a cryopod and then an airlock and throws food goo at hunk and pidge and then a training bot won’t shut off and ends up almost killing keith

all the while allura is a million miles away in her mind, all thoughts on returning home and being safe and happy again with her father on altea (even though in reality altea is just … gone)

and even alfor’s ai, when it starts telling allura things like ‘just join me and the rest of your people’ and to ’give up’ like ??? that could symbolize allura having painful and intrusive thoughts.

Has her own arc and narrative that explores her grief at all of the loss she’s experienced (her father, her civilization, etc)

Makes hard choices for the team no matter how painful, like when she chose to let her father go to save her team 

Is allowed to have emotions and grieves openly, and the show doesn’t belittle her for it 

Shows her being a strong leader who also immensely compassionate and values her team more than anything

Also values the people she is meant to protect, cares about making them feel safe, not just beating up monsters and leaving them in the dark about it

Is honestly a badass commander and unapologetically the leader of the entire expedition 

Is managing to keep a level head even though she has literally been thrown into a different millennia with no warning and lost everything that she cared about 

She’s honestly a scared young woman at some points which is totally okay and natural, because she’s a person who is multifaceted and can be terrified and brave all at the same time

red i feel like would be more attune to her impulsive personality as it is right now in canon and how she literally doesn’t think sometimes before giving her life away for the paladins or for groups of people she just met. also she moves fast, with her combat and and with piloting that scooter in the balmera ep. she’s one of those people who relies on her instincts and a logical train of thought, so red would honestly be perfect for her as well.

with blue it’s a little combination of who she is and what she needs atm in time. because allura is a friendly person, but she’s not initially trusting to those she first meets, and i think her friendly nature is partly due not only because she’s a fundamentally  kind and gentle person, but also due to the fact that she was raised to be diplomatic and poised considering she is a princess.

 after s2, i feel like her trust may have been shaken a bit—definitely with keith. she has a lot of inner turmoil within herself, and her anger has overtaken her a bit. rightfully so! i also think maybe in s3 she will have a difficult time teaming up with the blade again, just like she did in s2 because really, there wasn’t a lot of allura letting go of her anger but rather just shoving it aside so that they could deal with their mission.  i feel like she’ll need a lion who is able to remind her of why she’s fighting so hard in the first place: because of love. also because i think allura definitely needs a reminder that she is a teen, and she’s allowed to feel hurt and pain and anger, but she’s also allowed to have fun. i think blue will definitely help her be in a position where she’ll be able to hang out with the members of voltron not only as their superior, but as a teammate as well. 

so, here is how i would love for it to go down in season 3 (even though i know it probably won’t happen, lol, but hey, let a girl dream): allura initially connects with the red lion the most, keith goes to black, lance stays in blue. allura is in a lot of emotional distress because of what happened in s2 and any other events in s3, so red becomes unstable like she mentioned in the pilot. allura switches to blue and lance to red, and this is where allura undergoes the most of her development by finally letting herself feel that anger and not be ashamed of it, connect with her team on a level she never had before, and remind herself of who she is as a person. then finally, allura will take over as the black paladin, which keith is thankful for, because while i think he can do a decent job, he knows that he’s not allura in terms of leadership capabilities. 

it also provides a moment where the writers can fix their mistakes regarding keith and allura and finally have keith acknowledge her situation and apologize for his actions in s2, which allura will gladly accept, and they’ll move on into a different state of their friendship. allura will definitely treat keith as more than a tolerated teammate who she has mixed feelings about but ultimately doesn’t want him to die or get hurt (because i honestly feel like that’s where they left off with that hug scene. nothing really got fixed, but she needed to say what she said because she didn’t know if she’d have a chance to after that), and keith will be able to finally understand a viewpoint that isn’t just his own, and will continue on with the arc that he currently started on s2, a.k.a. the coming of age arc and choosing his teammates and voltron over selfish impulses he occasionally has.

sure !! no problem !!!