shallurallels

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[shallurallels]

1x09 Crystal Venom scene analysis

Let’s take a look at something I just realized.

In 1x09 Crystal Venom, towards the end, the Paladins discover the castle is wormholing under mysterious circumstances. The entirety of the episode followed the Paladins dealing with a messed up Castleship. Allura was unintentionally driving the castle towards a star about destroy the entire system because of a malfunctioning AI Alfor.

In this scene, Shiro calls out to Allura asking her what is going on. When they realize something is wrong, Shiro is the first one to run towards her, only to get stoped by a barrier dividing him and the paladins from her.

Let’s say AI Alfor never stopped Shiro and them from getting to Allura. What would they have done?

Would Shiro had ripped her off the console? Would he have carried her off the platform and somehow gotten her to comply?

Like I’m curious what he was even planning on doing once he got to Allura if his “plan” hadn’t literally been stopped by AI Alfor.

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The Wolf, the Atlas and the Bayard

Or an Analysis of what Season Seven was Meant to be before They Rewrote it to Accommodate Black Paladin Keith 

At one point, the EPs mentioned a version of s7 where Shiro went back to being Black Paladin. I hypothesize that was the original version. When they got the go ahead to make Keith Black Paladin, rather than rewrite the entire story, they rewrote parts of the script they already had to fit that. 

This would explain why there’s no mention in the script as to why Shiro isn’t Black Paladin anymore. Because in the original script, he was. 

So, here’s a few things I think ended up being changed, added, moved around or cut from the original to make this new vision “work.”

First Start by Realizing the Truth: There was no Wolf

Let’s go back to s6 and assume everything happened exactly the same way it did… only minus the wolf. Does this change anything in the plot? No. The wolf appears in s6, but does nothing but stand around in the background and presumably provide extra moral support for Keith during their long journey. You could remove the wolf entirely and it would change nothing. 

Kind of like Shiro in the first half of s7. 

Keep reading

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why shiro and allura’s relationship was crucial for vld to function :: a meta

Warning: saltiest and longest meta I’ve written. But I think every point stands well on its own, and I tried to touch on as much as I could. Enjoy, I suppose.

To start, just a quick clarification: when I say relationship, I do not mean a necessarily romantic one. While I am a Shallura shipper, this meta will be the examination of Shiro and Allura’s relationship within the team, narrative, with each other (so it may get bit shippy) but first and foremost about why their co-leadership relationship, and the destruction of it, is what has led to VLD becoming the clusterfuck of a show it is now.

So, let’s go by this step by step, shall we? The first one I want to look at may seem a little strange, but bear with me: it’ll make sense as we get further into it. So, without further ado, let’s look at

The Black Lion and Broken Symmetry

By the end of s4, I had a list of certainties that I believed VLD would always come through on. While one of them was Shiro being Black Paladin, the second was that something related to the Black Lion, whether Shiro or the Bayard, would be affected by / affect Allura. This was an idea I’d been nursing since s1, as one of Shiro and Allura’s early scenes in 1x01 and where Allura uses his name for the first time, to tell him that his Bayard was lost along with its paladin. Shiro responds cheerily with, “I guess I’ll just have to make do,” and we see him do so for the next two seasons. 

But by the time s4 had rolled around and put Shiro (who was mostly speculated to be Kuron by that point, although I always believed the clone theory) in the Black Lion again, I had come to understand that Shiro being in the Black Lion would always be relevant for the arc of Shiro and Allura’s relationship.

S1: Shiro becomes the Black Paladin. He and Allura are co-leaders. He then goes to rescue Allura from Zarkon’s central command and finds out Zarkon was the OG paladin.

S2: Allura regrets not telling Shiro the truth about Zarkon. Shiro then beats Zarkon and gains the Black Bayard. Shiro defeats Zarkon battle and disappears.

S3: Allura mourns him and becomes a paladin in his stead. She wears pink to honour him. Keith becomes Black Paladin and Shiro/Kuron is found by Black at the end of the season. 

S4: Shiro/Kuron becomes Black Paladin again. He and Allura are re-established as leaders.

S5: Shiro/Kuron and Allura argue over him giving Lotor the Black Bayard, which is what allows him to kill Zarkon. Allura begins trusting Lotor because of his patricide. Kuron flies Lotor to the Kral Zera in the Black Lion, which leads to a stronger alliance between Voltron / Allura and Lotor.

S6: When Haggar takes over Kuron, he attacks Allura with the Black Bayard before leaving with Lotor. Allura later draws Shiro’s soul of the Black Lion and carries him in her own body.

Shiro and Allura and their relationship with each other, the Black Lion, the position of Black Paladin, and with the Black Bayard, perpetually affect each other and propel the plot forwards. Not only that, but it’s consistent. It was one of the first things, once I got over my initial reaction of s7, that also felt wrong coming away from that season. It had broken the pattern I’d been paying attention to for the first time in VLD’s entire run. 

But, as I’ve gone over the show’s structure time and time again, and think back to the first time I nearly dropped canon, the issues actually started in s3. So, let’s go from there:

Keep reading

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sometimes you just feel your ship vibes and remind yourself that shallura is impeccable

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I tried something + angst

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Ok you know what makes me angry? Why is Allura so mature and humble? She's a daddy's girl only child princess who was set to inherit a flourishing kingdom. Sure, she's well educated and probably elegant and graceful and tactful because that's how she was raised to act for diplomatic reasons but she was also probably spoiled throughout her adolescence. She probably got whatever she wanted whenever she wanted because her family had the resources to give it to her. Who's to say she isn't a spoiled brat who can otherwise act kind and approachable? Even if she isn't a brat, she was still handed her life on a silver platter. She has to learn how to operate and be self sufficient.

When she gets out of that pod, she should be scared. She should be angry. And she deserves to be so. Her father that she relied on for just about everything shoved her into a sleeping pod and suddenly she's awoken by someone who isn't him. Logically, that means he lost. She should be kicking and screaming. She should be having the worst panic attack ever. She should be mourning everyone and everything she's ever known. She should be mourning the status quo that will never again be maintained. She should be mourning the future that can never come to fruition.

She has to figure out life without any system or technology that she's ever relied on. Coran doesn't know how to fix and maintain everything. She's like one of those people that wake up from 10+ year comas and don't understand modern technology. She is my dad who has had the same flip phone since forever and now must figure out how to use a phone with a touch screen.

Every luxury she had as a princess is gone. The castle chef who knew exactly how she liked her food. Her mother's ladies in waiting who told her the castle gossip. Her own ladies in waiting who'd sneak out to festivals and other trivial things with her. The cleaners that arranged her room exactly as she liked it. HER MOM. I don't care if she was a daddy's girl, she still has got to miss her mom.

I feel like she should've had more outbursts. Seeing Keith in the red paladin armor should've made her cry. In fact, all of them should have. The new paladins in their armor is a symbol of a new era- an era without the people she loves. She deserves to scream at the top of her lungs and lock herself in her room and trash something. She should be yelling that life isn't fair. She should be angry. She should be so angry.

I don't care if she's trying to hold it together for the paladins in the show. She's holding together too well. She needs more moments of instability. She needs to grieve. She needs to be tired. She needs to be imperfect.

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You know what I think about a lot.

The writers could’ve easily avoided the lion swap and Kuron as a whole by simply making it as if Shiro had been teleported to the Galra during those those last few seconds in the fight of 2x13.

To me that storyline would have been 10x more interesting.

Imagine Shiro being recaptured and having to figure out how to escape but we actually see his escape this time. Imagine the overarching issue for the Paladins being they can’t form Voltron in season 3 because they’re down a lion and Black doesn’t allow Keith to pilot it. They’re then forced to forge a better bond with their lions, unlocking new abilities and a greater understanding of the lions individually.

That way we still would’ve gotten the origin story of Voltron (with some major tweaking cuz I didn’t care much for the actual origin story) but it raises the stakes.

No Bp Keith. No Allura assuming a lion. None of that bs. They could’ve done so much with these storylines. Then either at the end of season 3, Shiro somehow reunites with the team, or that’ll be top of season 4. Seeing true emotions of fear, anger, sadness driving the paladins throughout the season would’ve added so much depth to each of their characters, especially Keith’s.

Lotor would still the be big bad of season 3 since Zarkon is down for the count, along with Haggar and the generals by his side. Ooouuu what if we actually got a scene where Haggar is explaining to Shiro why he could’ve been their greatest weapon.

On that note, I would’ve really liked to see more on Shiro’s ptsd. That could’ve been highlighted with him being back in the hands of the Galra. Perhaps Black was trying to teleport him to safety but Zarkon was interfering up til the very last moment? Just as Keith has suggested.

Idk I just feel like season 2 really set up season 3 to be the downfall of the show—the Lion swap specifically.

[shallurallels]

You were every new horizon.

[shallurallels]

i keep forgetting klance isnt canon like i have to remind myself they never kissed ever..... they kissed with their words though 100%

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Because they deserve the positivity

From our Instagram @/bravepaladins

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ITS 2025 AND I STILL LOVE SHALLURA.

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yall this shit wasnt hard to see and if more of you were not so distracted with Klance and Allura was white, shallura would have been a bigger ship

the set up was slow, but it was there and would have had a natural climax where it came together effortlessly. 

Shiro and Allura in S1 and 2 stood apart from the rest. Age, maturity, leadership roles, and their dynamic w. each other. It was different 

then along with moments here and there, you have episodes like collection & extraction where the two are paired up for SOME reason which might not even make sense ( Shiro gives no logic as to why it HAS to be him who goes with her, he just states that he’s going) . Playful banter, high stakes, we see a slightly different side to both of them, Shiro finds himself slack jawed and awwed by Allura not once, but twice, unusual amounts of touching, dramatic sacrifice with some sort of theme in the back, and Shiro making an emotionally charged promise to get Allura back no matter what , even when others argue its not in their best interest.

episodes like Eye of the Storm where you can see which relationships are taking off based off how people are paired off. Hunk and Pidge, Keith and Lance and then Shiro and Allura. They share a romantically charged moment where Shiro sees all she has weighing her down, and tries to help lift it. 

Again Blackout. Its Shiro who gets the most attention when Allura “dies”. When communications are back up , its Shiro whose immediate thoughts are Allura.

and then the clone shit happened and the two basically never have any significant conversation until right before she dies. 

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so a million years ago, @shallura commissioned me for a – you guessed it – shallura piece, and it evolved into this gif-thing combined with a more-detailed-frame-thing. She’s very patiently waited through me saying “it’s not good enough / it needs more work” about a hundred times, until right now when I finally feel somewhat satisfied with everything so… thank you, rachel!!! & congrats to you and your beautiful otp :)

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okay so we got shiro and allura being linked from the start with shiro being the catalyst for the show and the entire first episode revolving around them getting the team to work together to fight zarkon, all leading up to shiro being accepted by the black lion who was sealed away with allura for 10,000 years and her being the goddess in shiro’s “hero’s journey”

and a massive part of the fandom coming away from s1 thinking they were going to be canon, both casual and hardcore shippers, because of their strong co-leadership dynamic, their shared trauma, parallels (champion and lion goddess in 1x03) and mutually supportive relationship that included

shiro catching her and comforting her after she lost her father a second time, him going on a mission with the express purpose of keeping her safe, them bickering and trusting each other, allura sacrificing herself for him, shiro preferring to stay and be captured by the galra again even though that’s his worst fear rather than leave her

and for the S1 finale to hinge on shiro’s mysterious past with zarkon and his complete devotion to getting allura back no matter the cost only for her to turn around and help save him from haggar

and allura doubts shiro’s trust of the blades in s2 the same way haggar doubts zarkon’s obsession with the black lion, but allura supports shiro anyway and says, “i wanted to protect you,” and risks blowing her ship and the whole team up even when everyone else agrees with her about not trusting ulaz because shiro has a gut feeling and she trusts him more

and shiro spends episodes just taking care of her and trying to and stepping up as a leader when she’s tired and she’s so fond of him for it with her lil smile in 2x05 and the hand touch and them yelling out for one another in battle specifically, and shiro nearly cries over her again because it’s the worst thing, isn’t it—

and allura mourns and honours him by becoming a paladin and wearing pink for him and even his clone knows it’s his job to share the burden with her when he takes over her commander role between season three and four, and she’s overjoyed when ‘shiro’ is back in black

and she only trusts lotor because kuron gave him the black bayard but she’ll turn right around and be upset that kuron did because that’s supposed to be shiro, they’re supposed to be a team, not fighting, not leave her feeling so lost about what to do, not even able to watch him leave—

and she calls out for him in the void first and doesn’t regret trusting him even after kuron’s taken lotor and then she uses her alchemy for a good cause, for an honest, one and 

she brings him home by carrying his soul in her body and urges him to rest the way he did with her what feels like a lifetime ago

and they both have no family on earth and have been burned by past loves, and shiro takes over her duties for her so she can go on a date with lance, he refuses to let her blame herself for issues with charging voltron, he only has one hand and offers it to her, he defends her on earth, he’s ecstatic to see her feeling better

and allura builds him an arm and then powers it with her mother’s crystal, because they’ve both been haunted by sendak and zarkon and haggar and she’s always empowered him, always believed in him

and he’s the only one who says she’s ever done enough: “you never have to thank me for anything” and only lets his face fall as he watches her walk away when she can no longer see his expression because he refuses to hurt her, refuses to make it harder than it already is, he doesn’t beg her to stay, just quietly dissuades and holds her so tight and he cries, for the first time, in the whole series

but yeah no sure i’m booboo the fool for shipping them in the first place. didn’t have any valid reasons for liking their dynamic at all

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was scrolling on tiktok and i was BLASTED with this official VLD art:

WHIPLASH. FUCKING WHIPLASH. and now i want ALL of you to be reminded of the WAVES this art caused. civilizations COLLAPSED

they don’t make fandom like voltron anymore. they just don’t. bakudeku ending still doesn’t hold a candle to klance.