coming back to the voltron renaissance in 2023 made me think about the old fandom and the new fandom, and how they never changed.

mostly the hate for sheith and the fanon interpretations of the paladins. i was a sheith shipper and i still love them so much. but back then and even now, people will label those who like sheith, no matter who they are, "p*dos", "incest shippers", or simply "proshippers". this issue has been talked about in the past, but i still see it in the voltron fandoms renaissance, so i just wanted to put my two cents about this issue.

since the hate was born from the fanon interpretations i will start there (please keep in mind that these are my opinions and im writing about the things ive seen personally, back then and even now):

i will start with lance actually. lance in canon is the flirty, happy, jokester, or as pidge said "the goofball". he flirts with women sometimes, makes jokes, but overall he is a capable paladin, and he is great at longe range weapons. he has his own set of insecurities and has expressed homesickness in the show when they were still in space. his insecurities came from thinking what he brings to the team isnt enough. this isnt a rant about the show itself (mostly) so i wont be talking about his missed potential here, many lance lovers already did that. now in his fanon version ive seen, especially back then, his insecurities and homesickness was turned up to a 100. he had depression, and hid it behind a happy facade. this isnt my problem with the fanon character. i completely understand projecting onto a character ypu relate to, i do it all the time. my issue, in a lot of fandoms not just voltron, is that sometimes people bash other characters or make them unnecessarily mean just to angst another character. i personally hate character bashing with a passion. it honestly makes me a little mad sometimes, because the character is the exact opposite of what the fandom portrays them as. im not trying to generalize the entire fandom, but i see this a lot in almost every fandom. its usually only a single character that gets bashed too. when i look at something for the character from a show/book/etc i want the actual character, preferably with hcs i find cool, not oc content made out of them. i like oc content separately thats another thing, but making characters into what theyre not defeats the purpose of liking them in the first place. thats what i almost always saw with "langst". unnecessary character bashing, mostly keith, almost always keith. was the team mean to him sometimes? yes! but lance wasnt the defenseless victim in any way, he retaliated. thats the whole point of his own "rivalry" with keith. to push each others buttons. i love when people make hcs for characters even if i dont like them, but not when it erases another character entire personality or watering it down. that was my issue with fanon lance. he wasnt hated by the team. do i have hcs that dont align with canon at all? yes yes i do!!! thats okay!! but i try to keep their personalities the same.

next up shiro, my sweet winter child. shiro is the "hero", always willing to do whats good for the majority. hes the leader, the champion of the empire, hes calm when he needs to be, but hes also playful sometimes, and adventurous, and (from the pre-kerb flashbacks) even a little bit of an adrenaline junkie probably. most importantly, hes young. not a teen young, but a young-adult. his trauma made him seem more "mature" and "responsible", and yes while he is responsible, he is nowhere near parental kinda responsibility. his fanon interpretation make him a father figure to all, tired™️, wants to die, single father to 4 children, etc etc. personally, i dont see it. hes at most an older brother figure to the garrison trio. also he is keiths best friend. not parental figure but best friend. he is maybe the dad friend of the group and thats a maybe. because of the “father figure” hc, a lot of people hated on sheith bc “ew dude thats his dad/brother”. this kinda thing is not exclusive to the vld fandom either, because genshin has this issue too. i wont be talking about it in depth but another ship i like, zhongxiao, is hated because of the very popular “father/son” hc that is not canon. fandoms need to learn that just because a hc is really popular doesnt mean it is actually canon. the fanon shiro has the feel of a middle aged dad, when in reality hes barely in his mid twenties. he makes stupid laser sounds, jumps off of cliffs in a hover bike, and goes on rides past curfew with keith. he was the youngest pilot to ever go to the edge of the solar system, it was literally said in the show. he was most likely 21-23 pre-kerb and 25 in s1. people forget that yes shiro aged a bit in space but so did the others. also he was dead for like 3 season so i dont think he aged that much then. he died when he was 25-26, i really dont think people age when they die but thats just me idk. if you age shiro up while keeping the other paladins in the 16-18 range thats weird, and if you attack people because of that thats weirder. his responsible nature probably was caused by his trauma when he was the champion. he had to mature to survive.

now, onto my specialest boy, my babygirl, my universe, keith. i will admit that i have a bias when it comes to him, but its probably not what youre thinking. first things first, ill say this again in another post too, i hc keith as strictly mlm, meaning i dont like any pairings with him that involve a female character, especially acxa (bc shes my gf). this does NOT mean that i will harass people who like it. it just means i will block you if you reblog or like posts with it, because thats what youre supposed to do if you see something you dont like. this was just a heads up just in case. back to the actual rant. keiths canon character is that he has trouble trusting people, but hes still kind, thoughtful, and sometimes playful too. like in s1 where he was having fun with the team. he has a edgy exterior, likely because he wants to drive people away before they can reject him. he has trouble understanding social cues and such, he is fiercely loyal and protective of his loved one(s). his fanon interpretation watered him down to "edgy teen", or sometimes an asshole. he was seen as emo and angsty, friends are for the weak, and "shiros emo son/brother". they took away the times he has shown vulnerability and kindness. when he put others no matter what above him during survival. he is not someone that would be mean for absolutely no reason, his rivalry with lance was mostly one-sided because lance initiated and he retaliated. his inability to understand social cues was most likely due to a) growing up in the foster system b) people not making an effort to know him, like shiro did, and shrugging him off as the emo loner kid and c) his year alone in the desert after his expulsion. some people made him up to be an asshole, or just plain stupid (lance sometimes got the "dumb one" treatment from the show but ive never seen it in the fandom, feel free to correct me). he was seen as edgy and emo for acting the way he did in s3 after shiro disappeared and before they found him. the treatment keith got, from both the show and the fandom, was so so bad. especially when it came to his trauma, grief, and his self-sacrificing tendencies. after shiro disappeared post-s2 keith lashed out, he was tense, from losing shiro AGAIN. there are, as we all know, 5 stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. he had just gotten shiro back after everyone told him he was dead and then he lost him yet again, this time with no logical explanation as to why or how. he just disappeared, seemingly into thin air. there was no logical explanation, he couldnt linger in denial like before, because there was nothing to deny. shiro was gone. the others didnt understand, because they werent as close to shiro as keith was. he was their leader, their role model, their friend, sure but he was keiths best friend. the one person that didnt give up on keith even when everyone else did. their attempt at comfort fell flat, because they didnt understand what keith was going through, except for maybe pidge. keith didnt "get over it" at all, and it showed. it showed in his leadership, when he kept going after lotor, even if they kept getting their asses handed to them. i could make a separate long rant about hoe keith mental well being was always shrugged off, his sacrifices. another instance, was naxela, or however you spell it idk. keith almost sacrificed himself, almost died, to save everyone else. he was so so close to doing it that if lotor was even a second late he wouldve died. and no one acknowledged that, not even an "are you okay" from matt, who begged him not to do it. hell, shiro(kuron) even congratulated him for taking the shield down and saving them. imagine how fucked up it wouldve been if keith succeeded. keith self-sacrifices are never brought up, never acknowledged. the cartoon excuse wont work because the show did cover heavy topics at times. keiths inability to see himself as invaluable and important was further encouraged by the "mission before the individual" mindset. im about to lose my point and start ranting about keith.

now, sheith;

no sheith isnt incest. they arent and never was actual brothers (adopted or otherwise). the "youre my brother" line is what people always refer to in an arguement, but that isnt evidence. bc in s2 keith said "youre like a brother to me". "oh they have a brotherly relationship you cant ship them-" yes i can. yes i absolutely can. that arguement is literally just "smh cant two people be friends". because they are best friends first. and it was always keith saying those things, never shiro so i can make the arguement that if they had a brotherly relationship it was one sided. in the black paladins episode (still my favorite along the the bom) the clone didnt have a reaction to the "youre my brother" line, he specifically had a reaction to "i love you". there was a pause between those two lines, so i can make the argument that keith thought shiro only saw him as a brother, but when that didnt work, he confessed. but even without my own argument, they still are never brothers, otherwise they wouldnt have put a direct paralel between shiros ex-boyfriend and keith.

no sheith isnt a p*edo ship. keith in s1 was 18, and that wasnt even confirmed after a while. shiro was 25. in s6 keith was 21 and shiro, being dead, was most likely still 25. most people, like me, who shipped sheith started shipping them in s1, because it was clear they had a positive history. keiths first word was "shiro?" in the softest most vulnerable voice ever. shiro always showed concern for keith, the way the looked at each other was enough for people to like them as a ship. their wiki has an incredible amount of moments between them that can be interpreted as romantic. the ages were never an issue, if they were they wouldnt have said that they could be interpreted as romantic. even with the pre-kerb argument, because the ages arent confirmed, it never was.

this point is for shunk, shance, etc too. but bc sheith was and still is public enemy no1, i talk about them. sheith was popular, and at the time any ship with keith and lance that wasnt klance was hated by them, but sheith especially so. the fandom calmed down for a bit and now its back, i think, from what i saw. but the sheith argument is still going on. i got back into vld because of a keith edit i saw on tiktok, i wont lie. but the not so surprising thing was that sheith is still public enemy no1. you cant go one second without someone hating sheith and making fun of the shippers. its a "proship" apparently. hell my favorite keith editor literally has "shaladins dni". the hate for sheith specifically is still so strong. and its exhausting, i dont like people calling me a proshipper simply for liking a fictional ship that is in no way a proship.

i sat down for like probably an hour writing this just to get my thoughts out. i have been thinking about this for so long, even if this doesnt make sense or its stupid i really dont care. maybe tomorrow ill hate it, maybe ill delete it even who knows. im really glad that there are places where sheith is no longer shot on sight.