#sendak/shiro

[ryan-draws-fanart]

Baby Raz, from my new fic Two Halves Make a Whole, a follow up to Healing Half a Heart. The hippo is from Uncle Keith.

[tarantula-hawk-wasp]

"You've been broken and reformed..." "Do you really think a monster like you could be a Voltron Paladin?" "Crystal Venom " lives rent free in my head. Shiro spends that episode making so many exceptionally distressed expressions.

[kismetconstellations]

@sockdooe I first encountered this supposed explanation in the comments section of a fanfiction, so it is to be taken with a grain of salt, but I read that Shiro's design was primarily based on what the showrunners thought "looked cool". This includes the prosthetic grafted onto his person by his captors, the scar across his face, and the shock of white fringe in his otherwise naturally dark hair. And, I won't lie, his design serves its purpose. Shiro immediately draws the eye, and not just because of his usual placement front and center in the standard team line up.

It's reasonable for the sort of space soldier, G.I. Joe type of character the staff intended Shiro to be to have these sorts of physical characteristics.

It's also completely reasonable in a Sci-Fi/Action show for a villain as menacing and ruthless as Sendak to have a similarly distinct, eye-catching design. Such features as a sinister, gleaming, red bionic eye, and massive prosthetic arm powered by a core of glowing, magical electric energy pulsing in a line from shoulder to forearm stand out, are easily memorable, and make him instantly recognizable as a really Bad Guy.

The idea of Shiro being a sort of "light, heroic mirror" to Sendak, which the show introduced and continued to attempt to enforce all the way up to Sendak's death, sits incredibly uneasily with me, however. As I've made explicit several times, before.

Content Warning for discussion of sexual assault/rape.

We're shown the recurrent imagery of Sendak looming over and behind an incapacitated Shiro.

Shiro's instinctive response to seeing Sendak heading toward him is to back away out of fear before steeling himself and resolving to fight, if only to protect the Castle and an unconscious Lance.

The very first thing that Shiro says to Sendak is, "You're not getting in", to which Sendak replies, "Yes. I am".

Coran suggests that the Galra might keep him and Hunk as, "some sort of creepy pet to play with how they please", in an appeal to Shay and Rax for assistance concealing their presence on the Balmera.

There's genuine contempt in Shiro's voice when he asks Sendak, "What do you want?", prior to his torture at Sendak's hands.

Sendak delivers a stomach-churning gloating little speech after torturing Shiro via electric shock.

And, Rolo refers to Sendak as a, "real nasty bugger", a term that has an exceptionally crude colloquial meaning.

Now, maybe I'm a cynical weirdo who is reading far too deeply into this, and connecting dots that aren't there. But...

Shiro bears a much stronger resemblance to Berserk's Guts than the Takashi Shirogane from the original Go Lion! that he's named after. Guts is a famous survivor of childhood sexual abuse, having been sold by his adoptive father and purchased for use as a sex slave by an ugly hulking pederast.

There were obvious Neon Genesis Evangelion fans working on this show, and Rei Ayanami, the character that Shiro's story seems to reference with the sheer excess of clones created using his DNA, is also a victim of sexual abuse.

(There's even, arguably, influence taken from The Legend of the Blue Wolves, a relatively obscure yaoi OVA largely set at a military facility which trains soldiers and pilots for combat missions in deep space. It features an extended scene with a virtual flight simulator, and one of the two male leads is-- wouldn't you know it? Raped by an ugly hulking monster.)

Correlation does not imply causation, and perhaps the similarities are entirely superficial, and we're not meant to think too hard about them.

Yet, with the amount of scrutiny that a series as utterly wholesome and innocuous as Bluey is constantly under, I cannot buy for a minute that a series Netflix gave a TV Y7 rating to didn't undergo some level of screening to ensure that its content was appropriate for the intended child audience. Someone had to have asked the staff if bugger was the term they meant to use, aware of the disturbing, far less than child-friendly implications, and was met with a resounding confirmation.

Beyond that, extended proximity to even an imprisoned and inanimate Sendak sends Shiro spiraling into a psychological break down.

Shiro's intensely traumatic experiences in captivity, which his brain seems to have largely repressed in order to protect him ("It's all a blur.") would, by themselves, be enough to convince him that he's been broken and reshaped into something monstrous. His bodily autonomy was, unquestionably, brutally violated, and his innately altruistic, self-sacrificing nature was violently challenged when he was forced to kill or be killed for his captors' entertainment. His right arm was taken from him and replaced with a weapon, and he has the blood of who knows just how many innocents on his hands. He was, indeed, broken down in an attempt to reform him into the Galra Empire's "greatest weapon", and likely very much wars with himself over what he had to do to ensure his own survival, believing himself to be a monster.

What really stands out to me, though, is that this intense, primal terror and the accompanying feelings of "brokenness" and "monstrousness" only surface around Sendak. Despite also being associated with and direct causes of his trauma, neither Haggar nor Zarkon rattle Shiro to his core the way Sendak does.

Neither of them are insistent on drilling into Shiro's head how "broken" he supposedly is, as Sendak is shown doing over and over again. Including taunting Shiro over the non-consensual modifications to his body.

Harboring a deep sense of shame, and viewing themselves as something dirty, ugly, disgusting, broken, or even monstrous is an experience common among survivors of sexual abuse.

Having Shiro's physical condition repeatedly mirror his personal tormentor's would be sick and twisted enough.

Adding the context of rape or sexual abuse to Shiro's torment makes the creative decision to intentionally model his arm after his abuser's outright sadistic.

No one deserves to have a constant physical reminder of their abuser and rapist permanently attached to their person. And, attempting to paint Shiro as a "heroic mirror" to Sendak fails entirely when Shiro doesn't so much as get to best Sendak in combat once.

All of the points you've raised about the function and structure of prosthetics are amazing, informative, and highly appreciated. (The comment about Shiro's abominable floating arm looking like it wouldn't be able to support the weight of a grocery bag makes me laugh.) Sadly, there's a faction of the fanbase who are all too quick to fetishize that arm, like everything else surface-level about Shiro. I've seen a number of fics where its ability to be propelled a great distance with a single thought is used to pleasure a partner while Shiro, himself, is in a different room, where the arm is equipped with a vibrating function for use as a sex toy, and, of course, where the thickness of its fingers is sexualized for... the same reason the bulge in the crotch of Shiro's pants is.

(I beg this fandom to stop reducing this man to a seme stereotype because of his physical build and height. Nothing in his personality suggests that he would be anything even approximating that cursed archetype. Let him be a pillow princess, for God's sake, like he deserves.)

This reply took me forever, and I am sincerely sorry about that. I hope you find something worthwhile in this haphazard collection of thoughts.

And, "Sendick" is how I'm going to be mentally referring to that creep from now on.

[shendak-corner]

A lil illustration I did a while ago of them in my lil fantasy, king and knight au ><

[discordiansamba]

Sam returns to Earth before Shiron allies himself tentatively with the paladins and before Karrion becomes Keith again. Therefore, he is left to debrief the Garrison on the status of their two missing pilots- which is a mess of a report that he's dreading to make. How do you inform the people they used to work with that two of your own are working for an evil space empire now?

He's fairly certain they were both brainwashed. He can't think of any other reason they'd join the Empire. He certainly can't imagine a reason why Shiro would, in his right mind, ever agree to being turned into a Galra. Which is. another thing he's going to have to report to the Garrison- as well as the fact that Keith was, apparently, half-Galra the entire time.

That second part is definitely not going to make him look good.

So needless to say that when Voltron finally returns to Earth with Keith and a Shiron who is mostly Shiro now but not entirely in tow, things are... very tense. They're nearly mistaken as enemies, until the paladins defend them. They can both confirm that they were brainwashed- Shiro keeping the part where he's not... entirely unbrainwashed yet to himself.

But also. Yes. They did spend the last several years working for the Galra Empire. That part they cannot deny, brainwashing or not. Admiral Sanda has half a mind to throw him both in the brig and be done with it- except as someone points out, that would only work so long as Keith agreed to stay put. Since he can teleport now.

She doesn't, in the end- if only because they can provide them with valuable intelligence. They might be three years out of sync with the rest of the universe, but Shiro definitely knows Sendak. He hated him even when he was working for the Empire. Both Keith and Shiro are itching for a chance at redemption- and what better way to get it than helping stop Sendak's invasion?

(and if Shiro gets to kill Sendak while he's at it. well. that's just a bonus.)

[galraluver]

Just a lil thing I made while watching Fairy Tail after getting inspiration from this particular soundtrack

[nerdytoafaultline]

[vrepit-sa]

VLD had so many moments that were just so good and then they completely and utterly blow the ending, it's baffling

[hear-the-black-lion-roar]

Goretober 2022 Day 11: Suffocation

During Shiro’s second time in captivity Sendak got into a habit to sneak behind Haggar’s back to temporarily turn off his oxygen supply for fun. Whether he was just being a dick or he was jealous he no longer has the most glorious mane around is anyone’s guess.

[3cosmicfrogs]

Wife mutual back again to ask about, you guessed it: Voltron AU where canon Shiro is replaced with our wife (either gen or ship of choice)

I swear to god the only thing I think about isn’t Voltron (it’s not. I also think about women)

aw fuck yeah, more Wife asks! 5 headcanons, let's go!

Ok so shiro either came out aged 5 or aged 25, there's no in-between. Because late coming outs are super valid: after a Super Fun Year of no bodily autonomy whatsoever, shiro spends actually very little time (listen, there's aliens and weird machines, no one volunteers to parent these teenagers) contemplating his relationship with gender and decides that bodies are weird, gender is a fuck. But 'woman' doesn't really have a zing to it, yknow? and then keith the absolute autism hurricane goes "why don't you just be a dyke then?" and while the rest of the room descends into Discourse ("can you even reclaim that, keith?") shiro is having several rapid-fire realisations because oh. OH.

I don't think she'd have gender dysphoria? More like general dysphoria on account of the arm etc? Still, while she used to be confident in the dating scene she's a bit intimidated nowadays. Because suddenly women are also hot??? how deal??? semi-confident gay -> useless lesbian magical girl transformation sequence.

I don't think anything would actually change plot-wise from canon? Except of course this is an AU and will therefore be Good. I don't have any ships in mind for this au so i guess anything goes? except not shallura because i dislike shallura. im gonna hit ulaz with my transgenderification beam just to shake things up a bit. would be fun if during the reunion episode they're spiderman-memeing each other.

Her eyeliner skills were always impeccable and her lipstick skills are even better. It never smudges, it's sharp, it's wine-red and ever-present... it's borderline supernatural at this point

She thinks dresses are lovely, sure, but absolutely thrives in a corporate powersuit. i will leave you with this image.

[sendak-n-shiro]

Another lil one I did a long while ago

[tarantula-hawk-wasp]

some portraits based off frames I liked in the first episode of Voltron. The pilot episode still is everything to me. Thought this was a nice angle of Shiro <3 Wanted to play with giving Allura a different hair style while keeping the silhouette of her canon hair. I thought Sendak's evil little grin was fun

[kismetconstellations]

If I ever stop hating this show, I've either been replaced by a pod person, or I'm dead.

[shendak-corner]

Lil chibi Sticker like designs 💜 with garrison arc Shiro and Sendak

[discordiansamba]

Top 5/10 fav moments of Voltron?

Unironically the fucking. Lotor bounce in s6. I live for that moment. It was much deserved, although I think Romelle or Allura should have also gotten to kill him.

that scene between Hunk and Keith in s7. you know the one. I am rotating it constantly.

Allura's impression of Lance lives in my head rent free for reasons I do not understand.

these are tied but Allura reviving the Balmera and her destroying the Komar. great stuff.

the Keith vs Kuron fight in s6. I mean. this shouldn't surprise anyone. I love for shit like that.

that scene in Reunion where Pidge follows Matt's transponder code and it leads her to a graveyard and makes her think her brother is dead? That is actually probably like. the single most solid scene in all of VLD.

I am at all times, rotating like. the entirety of The Last Stand parts 1 and 2. I don't care if other people in the fandom hate those episodes bc none of our main characters are in them. They're so solid (except for the part where they killed off Adam. landspeed record for burying your gays, great job).

Keith attempting to sacrifice himself to save (checks hand) uh basically the entire rebellion. It's an iconic character moment for a reason.

the Keith vs Macidus fight, the second one.

Hunk's moment when they're adrift in space and he's trying desperately to hold everyone together, and how it all comes back to everyone saving Hunk. The actual linchpin of the team.

[palidinus]

speaking of ionized cannons, that is easily shiro's most dangerous weapon, but i think that it's only kuron who uses it, so like, unless you were to provoke shiro into snapping, somehow (like when pidge has to disable his arm because he gets mind controlled - via one of the vld comic books), it really wouldn't be that big of a deal. he doesn't know how to activate it on its own, and yes, the arm has superhuman strength and can turn into an ionized laser, but ultimately, if you know how to get it to stop working, you're in good hands.