- ̗̀Voltron Trash ̖́-

(No reason except for the anxiety creeping in his chest, the uneasy feelings waring with his insides, the way everything was the same and yet nothing felt safe, and the planet he had missed so much felt foreign and jarring and wrong.

Or maybe it was just Lance who was that way.)

Somehow, he’d been less surprised to find Shiro there as well.

(I think I have PTSD, he’d said, and Shiro had looked so incredibly sad. Yeah, you probably do.)

“This…” Lance gestured, encompassing his anxiety, the conflict and distress inside his chest, and just…everything. “This is what you were trying to protect us from.”

For the first time, Lance understood the painful, searing regret in Shiro’s eyes.

 “Yeah. I was.” 

Silence fell heavy. There were a hundred things between them and all the things Lance wanted to say but couldn’t because they weren’t true. Things like “you didn’t have to do that” or “we wouldn’t have been hurt by you” or anything that got away from the messy, painful truth of their situation. 

The truth that Shiro had been right. It wasn’t fair, what he had to do. But they’d needed him, and if he hadn’t— 

“Thank you,” said Lance, the one thing they’d never managed to say, angry and frustrated with his self-destructive behavior, the way he never seemed to care about himself and shut them all out, all in the name of protecting and caring for them. 

Tears built up in Lance’s eyes. It wasn’t fair. He flung himself into Shiro, hugging him tightly. It wasn’t fair that it’d happened, and it wasn’t fair how relieved and grateful Lance was that he’d done it. 

 “Thank you,” Lanced choked again into Shiro’s shoulder. 

Shiro hugged him back just as tightly. “I’m sorry. I wanted to protect you better. I didn’t want this for you.” 

There wasn’t anything else to say. Lance hung on tightly and let himself cry—for himself and for Shiro. For his friend, his brother, his mentor—his teammate, leader, and hero. For everything that had happened and they had had to go through. But most of all, for a universe where someone he loved so dearly could sacrifice so much—and it would still be the right thing to do. 

Lance could never repay Shiro for what he had done. All he could do was hug him and cry for him and sob…because he couldn’t in honesty say he wished Shiro hadn’t done it. 

“Thank you,” he wept into Shiro’s shoulder. “Thank you thank you thank you.” 

And this time, just maybe, Shiro would hear him.

Shiro can teleport. Well. That’s the most visible aspect of his power. What he actually does is warp the fabric of space-time because of course he does that. You know how Shiro basically fights like gravity is optional? Yeah, that just got 100x worse. Shiro essentially floats and drops and moves however he needs, and now he affects space-time for everyone else, too. You can tell when Shiro’s gotten really pissed because there’s this immense pressure and everything is suddenly heavy. Or in a combat, his enemies who were grounded are now bouncing and floating. And if you think “space”= “no gravity”, you’re forgetting this is the star pilot of the Garrison who certainly knows about orbitals and gravitational assists. He doesn’t need any alien robot-lion bond to calculate multi-body trajectories instantaneously in his head even with changing gravitational fields. Teleportation might be flashy and all, but every member of team Voltron knows that’s the least dangerous thing he can do.

Lance is an empath. At first, he’s disappointed he didn’t get anything cool and flashy like Shiro. Actually, at first, Lance didn’t think he got a power at all. This is just a normal part of forming Voltron, right? Right?? Why is no one else so exhausted from all the feelings? Guess I’m just weak… Lance actually has a near breakdown before the rest of the team clocks it and realizes he’s constantly swimming in everyone’s feelings and yeah, no. No one can handle all that. Allura steps him to teach him how to build boundaries, and still, he has to spend a few days avoiding Keith and Shiro (”What the hell, you two?! Do you guys feel ANYTHING that’s not twenty shades of repressed trauma???”). But with time, Lance learns to control and use his power to help the team. His connection is strongest with the other paladins, and he mostly uses his power to look after them and help them out during the down times. Lance has learned the importance of being a support and takes pride in healing his team when they’re down so they’re ready to kick ass in battle. But he also shines on diplomatic missions. His ability to ping what other people are feeling not only helps him smooth over offenses or fears, but he can pick up on inconsistencies and unseen red flags. Not to mention, Lance can nudge other’s emotions. Normally just slightly, but it’s enough to swing things in their favor. Lance might not be flashy, but that doesn’t make him less powerful. And anyone on the other side of the negotiating table quickly learns that.

Keith has precognition. Think Jedi see-things-just-before-they-happen Force shenanigans. His instincts aren’t just on point–he’s often reacting to things just before they happen. Naturally, this makes him almost impossible to face in combat. Incidentally, this is also part of why Keith is so bad at communicating: he’s often thinking in multiple points of time at once and condensing that down to one point to talk about is just…it doesn’t work like that. But slowly, as Keith learns how to work in a team and, if he can’t quite communicate with words, to let the others in so they sense what he’s sensing, Keith’s precognition stops throwing him out of sync with everyone else and pretty soon Voltron has the same too-fast reflexes as Keith. The others have gotten used to the flashes of Keith-thoughts zipping through the Lion bonds and letting him move them when they do. Now not only are the Lions practically indestructible, but Voltron is nearly impossible to land a hit on in the first place. 

At first Pidge is annoyed about the paladins powers because–Green Lion? Of course she’s going to get plants. And Olkarion might have helped her appreciate the natural world more, but she still thinks plant powers are lame. She’s not Poison Ivy. Give her computers and climate control any day. But then she starts talking to Green as she’s coding, and at first she just figures she’s a genius (which she is, thank you very much) but her programs are like nothing she or anyone else has seen before. Especially the viruses she writes for Galra tech. They grow. She can plant a “seed” on one part of system and later she’ll find that code sinking its roots into an entirely different part of the enemy ship. It creeps like vines, breaking through any firewall, tangling up any kind of security, alive in a way even the best AI isn’t. Pidge doesn’t even really need an access point anymore, just let her loose near some tech and like an invasive species, soon she’s overrun it all. Pidge’s code is like vines, like ivy or tangle weed, and once it’s in there, you can try to root it out. But you won’t succeed. Pidge likes this kind of plant.

And finally Hunk can kind of just…bend reality. Normally it’s little things, like cables that shouldn’t work suddenly don’t need an adaptor, the rust jamming certain gears is magically clean, that fuel cell that’s been on empty for the last three varga is still going strong. Of all the paladins, Hunk appreciates that difference little things can make (for good or for really, really bad. You won’t think changing the rotation rate of that star by half a second would make a difference, but turns out that changes the magnetic fields which create solar flares which…). Hunk’s happy making small, manageable adjustments to reality that he can predict the full consequences of. Mostly. But there’s still definitely been a time that someone’s held a gun to one of his teammate only to find–the gun isn’t there anymore? It never was? There wasn’t even a gun in existence in the first place? And occasionally someone will realize that aren’t really limits to what Hunk can change besides those Hunk sets himself. Those people start to back away very slowly as Hunk talks to himself about whether or not he should turn this rock into space chocolate That’s a pretty big molecular change, not telling what side effects with come with that. But if he took something that was already food, now there’s an idea… Hunk doesn’t use his power in combat that much. Or, at least, not in ways people notice (but it’s it convenient that with Hunk around, armor lasts longer, equipment runs better, no one’s amo ever runs out…)

All these abilities would be chaos to work with, except that the paladins have grown to develop a low-level mind-meld like they have in the Lions. Normally it’s white noise far in the background, but it can flare up when needed and nothing is quite as disconcerting as when Keith pings something and all of them turn as one to look a second before something happens. Sometimes people swear that even when the paladins are outside of their Lions, doing separate things, they still move unnervingly like part of one unit. And in the Lions–

Gone are the days of inexperienced pilots attempting to survive. Pidge is turning your tech against you. Keith is predicting your every move. Shiro and Hunk are wrecking havoc on reality and all known laws of physics. This in addition to all the bells and whistles and impossible weapons they’ve unlocked in Voltron. And while you’re panicking, trying to figure out how the hell you’re supposed to fight this thing, Lance is there cranking your dread to eleven. Suddenly, it’s no longer surprising that Voltron is the most powerful weapon in the universe.

“Don’t they ever scare you?” ask some planetary leaders after witnessing the might of Voltron. Sure, the paladins are supposed to be the good guys, but… “What if they stop listening to you?”

“Oh, I’m not worried,” says Allura, the woman who has the power to heal and destroy planets in her fingertips. She smiles like her teeth haven’t turned sharp and blinding white in the last minute. 

::steeples fingers:: so what if Keith’s Dad looks so much like Shiro because they’re brothers?

bonus:

Neither, for a couple of reasons –

So like Chris Evans as Cap is probably doing a lot of bodybuilding-type exercises and eating to get the max amount of bulk in the shortest possible time – heavy-ass weights, low reps. Food-wise, he’d be consuming a shit ton of calories and low-fat protein (which he talks about, plain chicken and rice and being full all the time), and in the movie we see him extra-bulky because he’s also working out between shots to be swole. The dorito-waist is likely a combination of him being 6′ tall and definitely skipping leg day (comparatively speaking). I wouldn’t be surprised if they had him train that way on purpose just for contrast to emphasize the beefiness of his upper body.

Then if we take a look at Tom Hardy, we’ve got a completely different build – as Bane, or even as Charles Bronson, he’s projecting power because my dude is just large, but he’s not cut at all and some of the bulk is definitely due to a higher percentage of body fat. It works on him. I think part of the reason is that he’s not super tall (5′ 9″), but he is broad-chested and you get the sense that he could pound the shit out of you. In terms of eating/working out, he talks about it in this article re: Bronson, but I expect the same would be true for prepping for Bane: 

I had five weeks to make the transition into Britain’s most dangerous criminal and it was a race against the clock: We didn’t have any time to waste, so I started eating and my arse very quickly got very fat. For Bronson, I put on about 7lbs a week — with no steroids. In the end I’d put on about 2 and a half stone by eating chicken and rice, which was my staple diet throughout the day. Then I’d have a pizza, Häagen-Dazs and Coca-Cola: So not good stuff, but I had to put weight on. I needed to put a layer of fat on my body, because Bronson when he was younger was a big guy, a brawler.

In the same article, he also talks about doing lots of reps and what sounds like bodyweight resistance exercises to build dense muscle (as opposed to bulk).

Now let’s talk about Shiro.

I’d argue the biggest factor in Shiro’s post-Galra physique is likely nutrition. Now obviously we don’t have much from canon to go on, but as a slave, especially before he becomes Champion, there’s no way the Galran Empire is going to be spending the extra money/resources/time to make sure he’s well fed. From what we see of the arena, a lot of the beings sent in to “fight” are really just bodies for the more successful fighters to cut down, so in the eyes of the Empire, not worth much investment.

In terms of quality of food, there’s the question of how well Galra slave fare is going to actually feed Shiro from a nutrition standpoint. Like do they have different formulations for different races? Do they just feed everyone the same things and hope for th best? (these are the questions that keep me up at night). Without going too far down the road of speculatory xenomorphology? xenophysiology?, it wouldn’t make sense for beings from all corners of the known universe to have similar chemical cycles to a human’s. If we average the possibilities (perfectly formulated nutritive substances vs. bottom-of-the-barrel prisoner fare), I think it’s likely to be somewhere in the middle.

There’s also the question of quantity. Is the Empire feeding their gladiators a ton of shitty food? As little food as possible? It would make sense that the quality would increase as a gladiator survived more fights (signaling a more worthwhile investment from the entertainment and possibly product/merchandising standpoint), but even still I can’t imagine Shiro getting much beyond the bare requirements in the beginning.

All that said, I think it’s safe to say that for most, if not all, of Shiro’s Fun Year™, my dude was not getting the best grub, and definitely not the kind of high-quality/quantity protein required to get Real Big.

Then from a physical activity standpoint, it’s hard to say what he was doing outside the arena, but certainly surviving many multi-creature encounters would require a literally impossible ton of stamina, which means an unbelievable amount of cardio, which again is not the path to being Real Big. Plus like idk where he’d be lifting a ton of weights. We can assume that no one would stop him from working out in whatever cell or quarters he was kept in, but bodyweight exercises are better for strength than bulk. Plus our dude is tall.

Which means a lot of his key muscle groups are going to be longer so even if he were Big it would be more distributed than you might expect when he’s standing relaxed.  You also have to remember that the suits add a significant amount of bulk, especially in the back/shoulders.

Here’s a good ref for immediately post-Galra Shiro:

Fanonically speaking, Shiro tends to get portrayed as somewhat bara, but if we look at him here, yeah he’s got pretty clearly defined muscles but he’s not gigantic. I’d guess his upper arms are particularly pronounced from (1) wielding weapons in the arena (as we see in flashbacks) and (2) later from lugging his gotdamn metal arm around, but again they’re not bulky, which makes sense given the likely nutritional/fitness situation one would be in as a gladiator/slave to an alien empire.

In conclusion, Shiro has a fighter’s body, more along the lines of what you’d expect from someone who does MMA, jiu jitsu, or boxing, with maybe a side of sprinting in there for getting away from giant Robeasts. MMA is probably the closest thing we have on Earth to a gladiatorial sport, so it makes sense.

Shiro is naturally tall and actually fairly slim; you can’t exercise your way to a waist that waspish if you don’t have a narrow-ish pelvis. He’s got long arms (which would be v. good for reach both armed and unarmed) and long legs. Picture that kid in his early teens with limbs for days and no idea where to put them. Probably by the time he got to the Garrison or while at the Garrison, he started putting on some muscle. I wouldn’t be surprised if he focused more on cardio in terms of leg exercises, but that definitely would have changed once he was captured; those are some well-toned thighs. Even Ulaz appreciates them.

From an artistic reference standpoint, I’d recommend checking out middleweight UFC fighters who are over 6′ (link is sorted by height). Just look at the top 5 dudes and you’ll see what I mean.

Here’s one (several jammed together??):

Shiro frequently forgets to eat because he’s gotten so used to being underfed that his body signals mean nothing so like they’ll be training together and if no one has kept on top of him to eat that day he unfailingly gets lightheaded and spacey. 

The first time it happens Lance is sparring with him and immediately knows something is wrong because he lands a legitimate strike on Shiro for the first time ever, and this is Takashi Fucking Shirogane who is Constantly Vigilant and literally impossible to hit so obviously it must be Space Cancer. Shiro laughs softly at Lance’s concern, looking up at them woozily from the floor.

It’s Hunk who makes the connection while they’re all fawning over Shiro who is of course insisting that he’s fine until he tries to stand up. Hunk’s narrowing his eyes and crossing his arms like literally when was the last time you ate? and of course Shiro can’t answer. 

It would have been one of those Oh, Shiro! moments but then he’s quietly mumbling that he can’t tell anymore when he’s actually hungry. Lance chooses that moment to announce that speaking of food he needs a snack and hey why don’t they all go down to the kitchen. Lance doesn’t miss Shiro’s quiet, grateful expression as they head for the training room door.

The third time it happens, Shiro looks up from the training room floor to see the rest of the team gazing down at him with mixed expressions. Keith is crouching down to hand him what is probably an electrolyte drink. He’s frowning. “I thought we weren’t going to make a habit of this,” but quietly enough that only Shiro can hear it. The worry in his voice is obvious and he sees straight through the crooked smile Shiro sends his way in return.

The next morning, Shiro wakes up out of a fitful sleep to someone at his door and it’s Pidge. She’s clearly been up all night and she’s nearly vibrating with excess energy and she’s holding what looks like a bracelet. “Give me your not-robot-arm” she says, and before he can question it she’s strapping the thing around his wrist and closing it with a soft snap. He’s not fully awake yet and not at all sure he wants anyone strapping anything on him, but Pidge is talking at him at probably 300 words per minute and he catches snatches of things like “reading blood sugar” and “alarm for mealtimes” and “set it yourself”.

He looks down at the thing, which apparently has a display because right now a small version of Pidge’s face is frowning at him.

“It’s telling me to eat, isn’t it?” he looks back up at her and he’s practically beaming actual rays of sunshine. She’s so charmed and pleased and relieved that he likes it that, even though it’s been over 24 hours since she’s slept, she doesn’t mind sitting him down on his bed to explain it all over again. 

Kolivan: I was notified that he would pass away did he not receive sufficient affection.

Shiro: …I’m certain he meant that as a turn of phrase.

Shiro: Kolivan’s arms got tired.

Kolivan: Actually, Shiro insisted–

Hello funkyfreshghost7800! Happy to hear you enjoy my nonsense!

And thank you for sharing with us a piece of your upbringing–it’s really nice learning that the practice of stuffing family members with food is a universal phenomenon.

Wrapping up Mermay with an AU Shiro piece. I will miss doing Voltron and Mermaids.

Snapshot of the last holiday print I’m sending out this year.

I’ve only got a few more prints left but you can request for 1 by filling up this form: