#buddy and shiro very slowly growing to respect and even like eachother

[im-smart-i-swear]

Do you think Shiro will ever meet the Funky Guys?? What would their reaction towards each other would be?

oh, they definetly meet eachother! i have a few ideas on how this happens(some more serious than others), but it definetly happens after the war is over(im not sure how excatly stuff goes down but galra lost and allura lives... and haggar is alive too cause Buddy and the others deserve to yell at her)

first im gonna quickly explain how they get off that planet: so basically Eenek(the galran kid)'s parent(dad?) thought they died in a "terrible accident" years ago, but after the war ended he went there in hopes he'll recover the body. he WAS NOT expecting to find his child alive and taken care of by a bunch of strange people who look susiciously like that black paladin guy.... but he agrees to take them all out of here and lets them live on his ship!(im skipping over so much stuff here) he knows who they are and doesnt give a shit cause they saved Eenek.

when Shiro and The Guys meet, theyve been living a relatively normal life for like a year or two already, hiding their origins and trying to assimilate into society. theyre doing great! ....... shiro isnt.

he feels out of place, hes been trough hell and really didnt expect to live trough it all, but he did and he has a long life ahead of him, so he should be happy, right? everyone else is moving on, his friends all have someone to lean on, but adam's dead and we never see shiros family(maybe they appear in the last two seasons? i havent watched them), so hes alone. hes stuck in the past, hes stuck as The Black Paladin Of Voltron, but no one needs voltron anymore except for parades and signing autographs.

and then, somehow, shiro meets these other versions of him, and they all moved on and made a new life for themselves..... he envies them, but he also wants to learn how they did it. he knows theyre not really him, and hes happy for them, he really is, they achieved something he cant - but its definetly bittersweet.

they all react diffrently to meeting shiro(oh god this is gonna be so long)

tashi feels like hes not living up to shiros greatness. he saved the universe, for fucks sake! if they have the same genes, then why cant he be such a good leader? what is wrong with him? is he broken?(he isnt!!! hes just fucking stupid sometimes) but he also sees how much shiro struggles and wants to help(maybe he sees him as family?)..... even if its awkward

soup knows exactly what shit shiro's been trough and she has a lot of respect for him. she treats him a bit like an old friend. shiro was a bit weary of her at first beacuse she can be very menacing, but its really comforting to both of them to finally have someone whos been trough the same hell. and of course she showed him her rock collection

buddy wants to hate shiro. he(they? ive been playing w/ the idea of buddy using they/he) spent years distancing themself from voltron as a whole and painstakingly building a new life, and now the manifestation of their past is just standing there- buddy doesnt really see shiro as a person(oh, the irony), just as a ghost, a shadow of what they used to be, and it feels awful.

i havent really talked about pal(placeholder name why is naming characters so hard) yet but he i think he feels similiar to both soup and buddy, since he remembers a lot from his time with the galra but also was an early 'prototype', so seeing the thing he was supposed to be makes him uneasy. hes overall shy and nervous so i think in the beggining he just silently stared at shiro for a really long time.

the fact taks(placeholder name, goddamnit) is trans makes her very uncomfortable with shiro. hes nice and friendly, especially to her and the other kids(taka, eenek and to a lesser extent pal, who is a lot younger than the other adults), but he is who she thought she was for a while(like buddy!) and its not great for her gender dysphoria. also, seeing someone so similiar to her family and yet so other doesnt help

taka(placeholder name-) grew up listening to buddys stories about voltron and he heavily idolises shiro. for him being a clone is cool - who wouldnt want to be related to the great Takashi Shirogane? shiro sees this 11 year old kid who has his whole life ahead of him and it reminds him why he became a paladin in the first place - so kids like taka will have happier lives, so they dont have to go trough what he had to. i think its safe to say taka aquired a cool new uncle that day

jesus fuck this was a lot, and im pretty sure theres more somewhere in my brain, but thats enough for now

thanks for the ask! you really opened pandora's box with this one!