#twinganes

This is how I picture Ryou 90% of the time when Romelle isn't around

Enjoyed sketching this grumpypants lol

Oh wow @optimisticmakerdaze ! It's been a hot minute - yeah, glad to!

So for some background - and feel free to ignore this paragraph if you're old school Voltron - in the original TV series that aired back in the 80s - the American version of it at least - Shiro was renamed Sven and he was part of the original Voltron team and the pilot of the Blue Lion until Haggar killed him. Well - killed him in the Japanese version - in the American version he was just sent to 'space hospital' off screen. Story progresses and Sven pops back up as a slave on the Galra home planet - meets Allura's cousin who looks just like her and has this whole story arc. Except in the Japanese version it wasn't Sven - it was Sven/Shiro's twin brother Ryou. So Shiro having a twin brother named Ryou was already Oltron canon and the jokes about VLD Shiro having a twin were already out there before I ever got involved.

Then @theprojectava made a post asking for fanfic

It just - clicked for me. The art, the idea - my creative switch got flipped and off I went.

I wrote a three part kind of story idea, kind of character study called:

Two minutes - part 1 and part 2 and part 3

The idea being that Shiro did have a twin brother - one that had become the kind of mechanic that Shiro had become a starship's pilot. Twins that were completely devoted to each other, best friends and as deep as blood could get. Ryou was the wild card to Shiro's stability, the 'lets go see what makes this blow up' mechanic, the practical nuts and bolts to build his twin brother's dreams and make them reality.

The other half of the coin that sudden found itself without its other half, left behind, landbound and told his dead brother was lost forever to him when the Kerboros mission went wrong.

And Shiroganes don't do hopeless.

It must have struck a cord because Ryou became a bit of a sandbox character that a lot of people loved throwing ideas at me about. And I honestly loved getting them. We were building something - a long reaching AU headcanon story and it was so much fun!

I got egged into writing more.

I See A Mirror part 1 and part 2

The ideas kept coming in. How had Ryou gotten to be a Garrison instructor? How did the team react to him after the rescue? How did he and Shiro, both psychologically wounded, deal with those wounds - both their own and their siblings? What did Ryou think of the Lions - what did the Lions think of Ryou? What happened when Ryou discovered a trash romance novel with Shiro from his Champion days on the cover? People sent me asks and I wrote fics to answer them. Other people jumped into the AU and wrote fics for it as well. There were songs we all agreed fit the twins and tumblr posts that sounded suspiciously like them. We shared headcanon ideas and built off of each others ideas and back and forthed ideas. There was a Batman cross-over!

And someone somewhere along the way came up with the idea to call the AU verse 'Twinganes'.

There were plenty of other 'Shiro has a twin' stories and AU verses out there. But there were quite a few of us just kind of jiving along in our own little corner of the sandbox having a fun time swapping 'Twingane' ideas around and telling each other stories about them. It's what fandom is really supposed to be like- playing together.

(honestly, a lot of the people I still follow and that follow me ended up being because of the Twinganes verse. We all kind of bonded over this scruffy mechanic we'd all come together to invent to give to our favorite character for moral support.)

If you're interested I've got a lot of stuff either stored in my sideblog theothershirogane or on AO3 (you'll have to sign in) here twinganes. Ryou slipped into a lot of my VLD fic - Rocketman for instance. And like I said - I wasn't the only one that wrote fic or speculation for this AU verse either - I'd rattle off a few names and @ them but I am honestly terrified I might forget someone and hurt their feeling so instead I'm just going to ask everyone to add their own stories/headcanons/song ideas/etc to this post so we can make a huge chain of it. I KNOW I didn't manage to save all the ideas and stories we came up with back then.

So, yeah, that's a short summary of the Twinganes verse and hopefully answered your question. I'm honestly really glad you sent me this ask - it brought back all kinds of happy memories about the fun we had together with the idea of a trash panda of an engineer. It really was full of all the good parts of fandom. And hey - its never really over. Feel free to jump right in yourself. I am positive I'm not the only one out of that creative group that would be delighted to see it light up again.

There's always room for one more in the Twinganes verse.

Shiro as the core.

Kuron as the alter who doesn’t know he is an alter.

Kuro as the alter that the others don’t acknowledge is there.

With recurring appearances of Sven as the Moon Knight from an alternate reality with a Norwegian accent.

“You’re sure you’ll be okay?”

“Takashi,” Ryou said, folding his arms and trying to give his twin the look his father - their father, he reminded himself, he was still trying to get better about doing that - would have given, “are you worried about me or the kid?”

“Both.”

He sighed and unfolded his arms so he could clap a hand on Takashi’s shoulder. “We’ll be fine.”

“I’m not used to you reassuring me,” he admitted.

Ryou couldn’t help chuckling thinly at that. “One of the first things I did when I got to the colony was look after the kids.” With help, but he left that out. He knew now that it had been a test, that the Alteans who had been helping him had been watching him as much as helping him watch the kids. They’d wanted to see how he treated them, what his base personality was like without the programming Haggar had done to him.

“It’s just that Alfor can be a handful...”

“We’ll. Be. Fine,” he said again. He patted his twin’s shoulder. (It was easier to think of Takashi as his twin than to think of shared parents or experiences, because that all just reminded him that he had this man’s memories, not memories of his own.) “Enjoy your quality time with your princess. You both deserve the break.”

“Yeah. Yeah, okay, you’re right.” A smile forced itself onto Takashi’s face. “You’re right, it’ll be... everything will be great. I hope you both have a great time tonight.”

“I hope you two have a great time tonight. Go spoil her rotten.”

The smile eased into something less tense and Takashi turned to leave, then half-turned back. “Remember what I said about the peanut butter.”

“GO,” Ryou told him with a laugh, making a shooing motion with his hand.

And Takashi left.

---

The Altean colony had been a perfect place to suggest for a “date night.” She still wasn’t sure why it was called that, but she wasn’t going to quibble over words when she had a night with her knight... well, paladin.

Hunk had packed them a picnic dinner, Keith had scouted out a perfect place to set it up: high up on a cliff, overlooking a valley lush with flowers, and Pidge had cobbled together a small speaker that played music Lance had selected for them from a list Coran had given him. It was a warm night with a breeze just cool enough to keep them from overheating, and the moons of Oriande were fat and lazy in the sky amongst the twinkling stars.

They ate and drank well, talked on matters both trivial and deep, and laughed together at inside jokes. Allura felt a peaceful contentment settle into her body, and made sure to share her happiness with Takashi through numerous nuzzles, cuddles, snuggles, and, of course, kisses. She almost didn’t want the night to end.

They took their time strolling back to the colony, hand in hand in companionable silence. She basked in the quietude: no screaming toddler or angry Coalition members to disturb her. Alfor should be asleep by now, she thought as they wound through the streets, so we should be able to just pick him up and take him back aboard the Castle and tuck him in. Then I can take Takashi to bed as well... She was looking forward to it.

The door to Ryou’s house opened upon recognizing Shiro - it did that sometimes, even when Ryou was already inside and the door systems should have recognized that; the DNA match was too close and it confused things - and the two of them walked in...

...to find Ryou dangling Alfor upside down by his ankles. The toddler was shrieking happily and his face was absolutely covered in what looked like peanut butter. His face and some of his onesie, for that matter. Toys were strewn about and the Black Lion plushie was on Ryou’s head.

He looked up as they entered. “Oh, hi. You two have a good time?” If he was aware of the chaos around him - or their shock at seeing it - he didn’t show it.

“What happened here?” Shiro asked.

“Huh? Nothing much. We’ve just been having a good time.”

“I told you about the peanut butter.”

“What? It’s not like he’s allergic to it. Let the kid make a mess now and then.”

“MESH!” Alfor declared.

Ryou responded by swinging his nephew around by the ankles some, causing more happy (and shrill) shrieking. After a few swings, Ryou swung him back upright, catching him up into a hug.The Black Lion plushie fell off his head and onto Alfor, who grabbed it up and promptly smeared peanut butter on it in the process of hugging it to him.

“We had fun,” was all Ryou said.

Allura exhaled and began to round up the toys they’d brought with them. “I had thought you would play with one or two toys and we were simply giving you an assortment,” she said as she gathered them into her arms. “I didn’t expect...”

“A toy-splosion,” Shiro finished for her.

“We played with ALL the toys.”

“ALL DA TOYS!” Alfor declared. Ryou blew a raspberry on the only clean part of the toddler’s cheek, earning more giggles.

“I’m surprised he’s still awake,” Allura commented mildly, depositing the first armload into the basket they’d brought.

“He’ll drop right off when you get him back to the Castle,” Ryou predicted. “I go for the ‘wear them out’ approach. Won’t you, Alfor?” he asked the boy. “You’ll go right to sleep!”

“SEEP,” Alfor repeated.

“See?”

And then Alfor opened his mouth and said a word that neither Shiro nor Allura had ever heard him say before. She stopped what she was doing to stare at her darling, innocent child.

“Please tell me he’s trying to say ‘fork’ for some reason,” Shiro said.

Ryou looked sheepish. “I... might have accidentally... I tripped and fell at one point...”

“Because you left toys scattered everywhere,” Allura commented.

“...and it just came out.”

Alfor said it again, because he was the center of attention when he said it, and he apparently liked that.

Shiro sighed. “I’m going to get a dishtowel to wipe him off.”

“You’re not angry?”

“I... don’t even know what I am.” He hurried to the kitchen area.

“We are grateful for your looking after our son tonight,” Allura rushed to reassure him. “But perhaps next time you should invite Romelle over to babysit with you?”

“Oh, that’s a good idea,” Ryou agreed. “She’d love the chance to spoil Alfor.”

“And maybe she’ll keep you from cursing around a toddler who loves to repeat words.”

Alfor said it again, louder.

“Sleep time, buddy,” Shiro said, reaching over with a toweled hand to start the de-peanut-buttering process. “Sleep.”

“SEEP,” Alfor agreed before thrusting the Black Lion at his father.

Shiro had to hastily put the towel between himself and the messy toy. “Yes, we’re going back to the Castle to sleep.”

“CASSLE.”

ahahaha they would TOTALLY do this too xD

Usually it’s Shiro calling Ryou his “biological clone” and Jiro his “artificial twin” to harass both his brothers—

(and to make Jiro feel better—New Timestream, Old Angst. Timetravel’s Weird so all Jiro’s old relationships are kinda gone and will This Shiro be okay with him??)

—buuuut once Jiro’s comfortable in his own skin again? YOU BET he’d become insufferable with his own brand of clone humor xD

-

...also Ryou just belts out Protoman’s Theme whenever Jiro does it. Mostly to beat Shiro to the punch.

Ryou: “Shiro, you may be the older twin but out of the two of us, you’re totally the Megaman.”

Shiro: “...hEY—!!! ...actually? I’ve got nuthin’.”

Ryou: “tOLD yA sO, Taka!!”

Jiro: “...why are you both like this.”

Shiro&Ryou: “It’s genetic.”

Jiro: “...lovely. (also never do that again.)”

S&R: “cOMe pLAY wITH uS, Jiro!!”

Messing around on my sister’s iPad today and colored an old sketch. Have some baby Shiro, Ryou, and Kuron/Jiro. Jiro’s new to the twin thing, but he’ll fit in before he knows it.

Last time Keith goes to his bros for dating advice.