Shurtis

Shurtis is the slash ship between Shiro and Curtis from the Voltron: Legendary Defender fandom.

Canon
Shiro and Curtis both met in season 7. Curtis worked on the bridge of the Atlas and would refer to Shiro as "Captain" or "Sir". Curtis continued working on the Atlas in season 8 and aided Voltron in their mission. In the episode "Clear Day", Curtis was seen in the audience watching Shiro arm wrestling. He was not visible when Shiro won his arm wrestling competition, and was seen hanging out with the MFE pilots around the same time.

In the ending of season 8, Curtis and Shiro are married, and are shown kissing. The Paladins, Coran, Slav, and others are seen at the ceremony. The epilogue narration states that Shiro "found his happiness and left the battle behind," showing that Curtis made Shiro happy in the end.

Fanon
Shurtis began to rise after season 8 as the two are now married. Not discouraged by the ship's controversial status, fans of the ship often contribute works of a happy and healthy marriage or pre-relationship content to fill in the gap of how the ship came to pass. Much of the positive fan work have Shurtis adopting children or animals together. Many fans also have Curtis bonding with Shiro's friends, with some even going out of their way to play matchmaker for them. Another common trope is of the two bonding over mutual grief after losing loved ones in the war.

Due to the lack of background about Curtis, many fans like to create headcanons and speculate on his background. One of the most popular fanons is that he loves dogs, due to his enthusiastic chat with Iverson about his own dog in "The Grudge."

Controversy Regarding Epilogue
It was admitted in the final AfterBuzzTV interview that the entire conceptualization and creation of Shiro's wedding epilogue was added as an attempts as an olive branch to the LGBT community. Dos Santos stated, "You know, we, the circumstances at which we sort of arrived at that scene didn’t allow us, we had like a day to really put that together... And we, I think sort of, wholeheartedly accept that it’s clunky. It’s hella clunky."

On June 6th, 2021 Joaquim Dos Santos apologized for the addition of the epilogue as well as killing Allura, stating, "I’m learning about how and why my creative decision(s) have had a negative impact far deeper than anyone simply feeling sad or angry because their favorite character died or did not get the proper on-screen representation. I’m accepting my roll in all of this and that fact that each and every creative decision I’ve made had come through a lens of privilege plain and simple. The fact that I was blind to how deeply affected people would be is proof positive of that… I am taking steps to educate myself on how to be a better ally, how to truly support black voices (as well as voices of the oppressed and marginalized from all walks of life.) I’m not trying to win anyone over here. I know for many it’s probably too little too late and that’s totally understandable.”

On October 22, 2018, a series of leaks of the final episode appeared online of the wedding, in which a different character was seen marrying Shiro. With the release of the final episode, it was edited to become Curtis.

In the English audio description, Curtis is referred to as Adam though he is once mentioned to be Curtis in the closed captions of a different episode. The error has since been corrected, but a number of fans have noted this as "evidence" of the "tacked-on" nature of the epilogue. Closed captioning was done by Netflix USA, not DreamWorks themselves.

Renaldo Metadeen of CBR complained that the marriage between Shiro and Curtis felt "cheap and tacked on," saying that the "five-second blip of the wedding...come[s] off as a publicity stunt."

Other reviewers have stated similar opinions, including Schedeen of IGN who wrote, "That said, it would be far more effective to see one of these animated shows acknowledge their LGBT heroes from the very beginning and not save moments like these for the literal last minute; with that rushed reveal (after spending no time establishing Shiro's new relationship or even hinting at it), while Palmer Haasch of Polygon stated, "However, Shiro’s nuptials feel abrupt given that we’ve barely seen him and his husband Curtis, a member of the Atlas bridge crew, interact in any meaningful capacity over the course of the season. Following Voltron’s queerbaiting controversy following the death of Shiro’s ex-boyfriend, Adam, the ending felt neutrally affective at best and disingenuous at worst, despite being a groundbreaking moment for LGBTQ representation in all-ages programming."

However, fans still enjoy the ship, as despite its controversy, the scene was the first male-male kisses involving a main character in a cartoon, and many enjoyed the closure it gave Shiro's character.

Fandom
FAN FICTION

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Trivia

 * As per the time skip shown in the epilogue cards, it can be assumed that Shiro and Curtis began to date sometime after the "one year later" scene in the final episode proper.

Variations

 * Adashurtis refers to the ship between Adam, Shiro, and Curtis
 * Curtasheith refers to the ship between Keith, Shiro and Curtis