[i’ll share this instead — i know this isn’t exactly sterek, but it’s my blog and i can do what i want. but i can’t let go of the idea that Boyd is truly Derek’s best friend]
like yeah, Derek considers all his betas like his new siblings (not as replacements of the ones he’s lost, more like additions) but he shows favoritism towards Boyd. they’re two peas in a pod, and if you think about it, they’re more alike than you’d think — maybe aside from temperament.
they’re both so quiet, but when they speak up it’s all sarcasm or dry humor. when it’s just the two of them, they become annoying brothers to one another — even mama Boyd calls them brothers and she sends Boyd plates to bring to Derek whenever Derek misses dinners. [oh my god! i can imagine Boyd picking at the plate as he drives to the loft, presenting Derek nothing but scraps and bones. Derek asking why he’s given a carcass of a cornish hen and Boyd shrugs while wiping his mouth, still chewing. “i’m telling your mom,” Derek threatens] [[WHICH IS A SECOND THING — Derek getting close enough to his pack’s family that he just gets to call them mom, dad, abuela, whoever. no formal title, melissa, john, mama and papa Boyd, the reyes’, Lydia’s mom all informally adopting Derek. he’s their son now.. he’s their collective baby. but that’s neither here nor there]]
anyways! they’re able to read each others minds pretty easily, it may not be on the same level as Stiles and Derek who can have full on conversations just by their eyes and facial expressions, but Boyd seems to always know what Derek’s thinking. while the other betas and humans moan and complain about their trainings, Boyd doesn’t mind how hard Derek goes, knowing that it’s Derek’s way of making sure they’re always prepared even for the worst. probably going as far as them just training and working out together, sans pack. this is maybe why Derek would have Boyd as his second in command. Boyd is reliable, smart, listens intently to others but also knows when to take lead.
if anything were to happen to Derek, the alpha title would go to Boyd. Derek trusting Boyd to be responsible enough to lead the pack, trusting Boyd to uphold the Hale territory, trusting Boyd to take care of Stiles [which is a whole other thing about Stiles’ reaction to Derek dying, Stiles in severe mourning while Boyd just tries to comfort and care for him the best he can; Boyd basically being a second husband to Stiles but in a platonic way].
no one’s really jealous of Boyd and Derek’s friendship, they’re actually all very understanding, and probably actually love it. Boyd and Derek have inside jokes that no one else gets but it doesn’t matter because at least Derek is smiling. Derek had eased up a little, softened those hard edges enough to let people in. and they’re all so important to him, but aside from Stiles (and Cora), Boyd is the most important part of Derek’s pack and life.
Sorry Krillin, Goku Found a Taller Best Friend: How Dragon Ball Sidelined Goku and Krillin for the Stronger, Stranger, Better Friendship of Goku and Vegeta
There is something quietly brutal about the way Dragon Ball handles Goku and Krillin’s friendship.
Because at the beginning, Krillin is not just Goku’s friend. He is Goku’s best friend. His first real peer. His training partner. His rival. His brother in orange. The little bald menace who shows up at Master Roshi’s island, cheats, schemes, complains, grows, suffers, improves, and somehow becomes one of the most emotionally important people in Goku’s life.
For a long time, if someone asked “Who is Goku’s best friend?” the answer was obvious.
Krillin.
Not Vegeta. Not Piccolo. Not Gohan. Not anyone else.
Krillin.
He was there before the Saiyans. Before Super Saiyan. Before Namek exploded. Before gods, fusions, angels, multiverse tournaments, and all the cosmic nonsense that turned Dragon Ball from martial arts adventure into “who can scream hard enough to break physics this week?”
Krillin was there when Goku was still a weird little mountain boy learning how friendship worked.
And then the series kept going.
That is where the problem begins.
Because Dragon Ball is not a story that lets relationships stay equal just because they are emotionally important. Dragon Ball is a story about escalation. Every arc asks the same question: who can keep up? Who can still matter when the threat gets bigger? Who is strong enough to stand beside Goku when the universe demands more?
And slowly, painfully, the answer stops being Krillin.
It becomes Vegeta.
That does not mean Goku stops loving Krillin. He does not. Krillin remains precious to him. Krillin’s death on Namek is one of the most important emotional triggers in the entire franchise. Without Krillin’s death, there is no first Super Saiyan transformation. There is no iconic breaking point. There is no Goku losing himself to rage against Frieza. Krillin is essential.
But that is also the tragedy.
Krillin becomes more important as a memory, a wound, and an emotional symbol than as Goku’s active equal.
Vegeta becomes the person who can actually stand beside him.
That is the shift.
Goku and Krillin are childhood best friends.
Goku and Vegeta are adult battle soulmates.
And Dragon Ball gradually chooses the second dynamic because the story itself has outgrown the first.
Harsh? Yes.
Correct? Also yes. Terrible how often those two travel together.
The saddest part is that Goku probably knows it.
Goku is not socially brilliant. He misses normal human cues with the enthusiasm of a man dodging taxes. But when it comes to fighting, strength, potential, rivalry, and usefulness in battle, Goku is extremely perceptive. Combat is his emotional language. It is how he understands people. It is how he bonds. It is how he measures trust, respect, growth, and excitement.
And by that standard, Krillin cannot keep up.
That is not an insult to Krillin as a person. Krillin is incredibly strong by human standards. He is brave. He is skilled. He has excellent instincts. He survives situations where most people would simply turn into a smear on the nearest mountain. He matters.
But Dragon Ball stopped being about human standards a long time ago.
Once Saiyans enter the picture, the power ceiling shoots into the sky and keeps going. Krillin can train. He can improve. He can help. But he cannot follow Goku into the same realms of strength anymore. He cannot push him the way he used to. He cannot challenge him. He cannot force him to evolve. He cannot be the person Goku looks across the battlefield and thinks, “There. That one. He understands what this level feels like.”
Vegeta can.
That is why the friendship shifts.
Not because Krillin did anything wrong.
Not because Goku is cruel.
Not because childhood friendship means nothing.
But because Dragon Ball is a series where the deepest bonds often form through combat, rivalry, and shared limits. And Krillin stops sharing Goku’s limits.
Vegeta does not.
Vegeta is not Goku’s first best friend, but he becomes something Krillin can never be again: the person chasing the same horizon.
That matters more and more as the series continues.
Krillin and Goku’s original friendship is built on training together under Master Roshi. They are kids. They are students. They compete, but in a playful, grounded way. Krillin is sneaky and insecure. Goku is innocent and absurdly gifted. Their dynamic is funny because Krillin keeps trying to outsmart someone who often wins by being pure, simple, and terrifyingly strong.
There is warmth there. Real warmth. Goku and Krillin grow up together. They suffer together. They laugh together. They become family-adjacent in the way childhood friends sometimes do. Krillin is one of the first people to really know Goku before the myth of Goku takes over.
But Vegeta enters the story at a completely different level.
Vegeta is not a childhood friend. He is an enemy. A murderer. A prince. A monster with pride sharpened into a personality. He arrives as someone Goku should hate, someone who represents everything brutal about Saiyan culture. Their first fight is not friendly competition. It is survival. Goku has to push himself past his body’s limits just to stand against him.
And that is the beginning of something Krillin cannot replicate.
Because Vegeta meets Goku at the level of destiny.
Krillin meets Goku as a boy.
Vegeta meets Goku as a Saiyan.
That distinction becomes everything.
Goku’s Earth friendships teach him kindness, joy, loyalty, and belonging. Krillin is a huge part of that. Krillin helps humanize Goku. He belongs to the part of Goku that is earthly, innocent, and emotionally open.
But Vegeta awakens and sharpens the Saiyan side of Goku’s identity. Their relationship is built around the question of what it means to be Saiyan, what it means to be strong, what pride costs, what rivalry creates, and whether two people can hate each other, need each other, surpass each other, save each other, and somehow become friends without ever admitting it like normal adults.
Because apparently saying “I care about you” is harder than fusing bodies to fight a demon. Naturally.
That is why Goku and Vegeta become so compelling. Their friendship is not clean. It is not sweet in the obvious way. It is hostile, competitive, petty, loyal, grudging, and weirdly intimate. They know each other through battle before they know each other through words. Their trust is forged in crisis after crisis, not in childhood nostalgia.
And eventually, Dragon Ball starts treating Vegeta as Goku’s true counterpart.
And in Dragon Ball, being Goku’s equal is practically a love language.
Look at how the story frames them. Goku and Vegeta are constantly paired. They are mirrors. Goku is the low-class Saiyan raised on Earth. Vegeta is the elite prince raised in violence and conquest. Goku finds strength through openness, training, joy, and protecting others. Vegeta finds strength through pride, resentment, discipline, and later love he pretends is not love because he is emotionally built like a locked filing cabinet.
They are opposites, but they are also the same species, the same obsession, the same endless hunger to improve.
Krillin cannot give Goku that.
Krillin can love Goku. He can support Goku. He can die and devastate Goku. He can stand by him emotionally. But he cannot be the person who understands the Saiyan hunger from the inside.
Vegeta can.
Vegeta understands the itch. The need. The humiliation of being surpassed. The thrill of a stronger opponent. The endless dissatisfaction. The way peace can feel like stagnation if there is no challenge waiting. Vegeta may judge Goku constantly, but he understands him in ways most characters do not.
And Goku understands Vegeta too, often better than Vegeta wants.
That is the foundation of their friendship.
It is not soft, but it is deep.
The fusion point is maybe the strongest evidence.
Goku and Vegeta fuse.
Twice.
In two different forms.
They become Vegito through Potara. They become Gogeta through the Fusion Dance.
This is absurdly intimate from a narrative standpoint. Fusion in Dragon Ball is not just teamwork. It is a literal merging of bodies, minds, power, instincts, and identities into one being. It is the ultimate “we are stronger together” mechanic. It takes the idea of partnership and makes it physical.
Goku does not fuse with Krillin.
He does not fuse with Gohan, even when that might have made sense in certain situations.
He does not fuse with his own son.
But he fuses with Vegeta.
And not just once as a gimmick. Twice, through two different methods.
Come on.
At some point, the story is basically grabbing the audience by the collar and saying, “These two are the matched set.” Subtlety has been buried in a shallow grave behind Capsule Corp.
The fact that Goku never fuses with Gohan is especially telling. Gohan is his son. Gohan is powerful enough to be a legitimate fusion partner in certain arcs. Goku loves him. Goku believes in him. But the series does not make Gohan the fusion partner who defines Goku’s ultimate teamwork.
It makes Vegeta that person.
Why?
Because Goku and Vegeta’s dynamic is built on balance.
Gohan is not Goku’s rival in the same way. Gohan does not want what Goku wants. Gohan’s strength is incredible, but his relationship to fighting is different. He does not live for battle the way Goku and Vegeta do. He can surpass them, but he does not chase the same endless path with the same hunger.
Vegeta does.
That is why Vegeta works as Goku’s partner in a way even Gohan does not. Gohan can be stronger. Gohan can be beloved. Gohan can be the son Goku is proud of. But Vegeta is the one who shares Goku’s drive.
Krillin cannot keep up physically.
Gohan does not fully share the obsession emotionally.
Vegeta does both.
He can stand near Goku’s power, and he wants to keep climbing.
That is the whole thing.
Goku and Vegeta are the “I am stronger because of you” dynamic in its purest Dragon Ball form. Each one’s existence pushes the other forward. Goku gives Vegeta a target he cannot stop chasing. Vegeta gives Goku a rival who refuses to vanish into irrelevance. Even when one surpasses the other, the gap becomes motivation rather than final defeat.
That is different from Goku and Krillin.
Goku and Krillin train together, but eventually Goku leaves him behind. Not emotionally, but narratively and physically. Krillin becomes someone Goku protects, mourns, encourages, and trusts in limited ways. Vegeta becomes someone Goku measures himself against.
This is where the friendship becomes stronger in the story’s eyes.
Because Dragon Ball values growth through challenge above almost everything else.
Krillin represents where Goku came from.
Vegeta represents where Goku is going.
And the series is always moving forward.
That is why the Goku and Vegeta friendship becomes the basis for Goten and Trunks too. The next generation copies the energy, but in a softer, more playful form. Goten and Trunks are childhood best friends in a way Goku and Vegeta never were. They are silly. They fuse easily. They fight together naturally. They bicker and show off and act like kids with too much power and not enough supervision, which, to be fair, describes most of Dragon Ball’s child population.
But their friendship echoes their fathers.
Goten is Goku’s son: cheerful, gifted, easygoing, friendly, naturally powerful.
Trunks is Vegeta’s son: proud, sharp, confident, competitive, Capsule Corp rich-kid chaos in tiny human form.
Their bond is what Goku and Vegeta might have looked like if they had met as children instead of as enemies trying to kill each other. Goten and Trunks become the innocent version of the same pairing: the easygoing Son boy and the proud Briefs-Saiyan boy, pushing each other, showing off, fusing, and being stronger together.
That parallel matters.
Because it shows that the Goku-Vegeta dynamic has become generational.
Goku and Krillin do not really get that kind of legacy mirror. Their friendship is foundational, yes, but the later series does not build the next generation around Krillin as Goku’s counterpart. It builds the obvious next-generation friendship around Goku and Vegeta’s sons.
Goten and Trunks are not the children of Goku and Krillin.
They are the children of Goku and Vegeta.
The story knows what its central rivalry-friendship became.
It is Goku and Vegeta.
And honestly, their adult lives even start to parallel each other in ways that make the friendship stronger. Both have strong wives. Goku has Chi-Chi, who is terrifying in ways no villain can properly prepare for. Vegeta has Bulma, who can stare down gods, slap divine beings, build impossible technology, and manage a household that includes the most emotionally repressed Saiyan alive. These men may be universe-shaking warriors, but both married women with enough force of personality to make them look like domestic side characters in their own homes.
They also both have strong children. Goku has Gohan and Goten. Vegeta has Trunks and later Bulla. Their families mirror and contrast each other. Their sons become friends. Their wives know each other. Their lives become intertwined not just by battle, but by family structure.
Krillin also has a strong wife and child, of course. Android 18 is a queen and Marron is adorable. But Krillin’s family life does not mirror Goku’s in the same narratively central way. Krillin settles into something more grounded. His marriage is its own story, and it is wonderful, but it does not become the axis around which Goku’s growth turns.
Vegeta’s family does.
Vegeta becoming a husband and father changes him. It makes him more human. It gives him something to protect. It gives Goku a rival who is not just a Saiyan prince anymore, but a man with roots on Earth. By the time Vegeta truly fights for others, not just himself, his bond with Goku has evolved beyond rivalry.
They are not simply “two strong guys who like fighting.”
They are two Saiyans who survived different worlds, built families on Earth, and still cannot stop pushing each other.
That is a much richer adult friendship than the series could sustain with Goku and Krillin once the power gap became too large.
The banter is also better. Sorry to Krillin, but it is true.
Goku and Krillin’s banter is sweet and nostalgic. It has childhood warmth. But Goku and Vegeta’s banter has bite. It has tension. It has history. Every exchange carries years of rivalry, resentment, respect, irritation, and reluctant affection. Vegeta can call Goku an idiot and somehow make it sound like both an insult and a love language. Goku can poke Vegeta’s pride with a smile and get exactly the reaction he wants.
Their conversations have energy because they are never emotionally neutral.
Vegeta is always trying not to care.
Goku always knows he does.
That is comedy gold.
With Krillin, Goku is affectionate. With Vegeta, Goku is engaged. Challenged. Amused. Provoked. There is friction. And in fiction, friction is fuel.
That is why their dynamic takes over. Not because Krillin lacks value, but because Vegeta creates more dramatic movement around Goku. He pushes the plot. He pushes Goku. He argues. He resists. He grows. He fails. He comes back. He forces Goku to deal with someone who is both enemy and ally, rival and friend, liability and partner.
Krillin cannot fill that role anymore.
By the time Vegeta becomes a permanent part of the cast, Krillin has already been moved into a different category: beloved human friend. Brave, loyal, funny, important, but not central to Goku’s next level.
And yes, Krillin’s death unlocked Goku’s strength.
That is such a cruel little irony.
Krillin could not follow Goku into Super Saiyan power, but his death opened the door to it. His greatest impact on Goku’s strength came from being lost, not from standing beside him in equal combat. That is emotionally massive, but it also proves the point. Krillin’s role becomes catalytic rather than parallel.
He helps create the legend.
Vegeta lives inside it with Goku.
That is the difference.
Krillin’s death says: Goku loves him enough to break.
Vegeta’s rivalry says: Goku needs him enough to keep growing.
Both are important.
But the second one lasts longer as an active dynamic.
That is why Goku’s connection with Vegeta becomes stronger in the long run. It is renewable. Every new transformation, every new enemy, every new ceiling gives them a reason to interact. Their relationship evolves because the power system evolves. They are both still in the race.
Krillin is not.
And Dragon Ball is not kind to characters who leave the race.
The series loves Krillin, but it does not build its future around him. It allows him dignity, family, humor, and moments of courage, but not equal narrative weight beside Goku. Vegeta gets that weight. Vegeta gets the rivalry speeches. Vegeta gets the fused warriors. Vegeta gets the constant comparison. Vegeta gets the “we are the last Saiyans who really matter in this specific symbolic way” treatment.
And then there is the “my friend” moment.
When Goku refers to Vegeta as his friend, especially in a serious farewell or parting context, it hits because the entire relationship has been built against that word. Goku calling Krillin his friend is obvious. Natural. Expected. No one gasps. No one needs to analyze it like ancient scripture. Krillin is Goku’s friend. Water is wet. Vegeta is short and angry. The sun rises.
But Goku calling Vegeta his friend matters because Vegeta had to become that.
He had to cross the distance from enemy to rival to ally to trusted partner to friend. That word carries the weight of everything they survived. It means Goku sees him not just as a strong fighter, not just as a Saiyan, not just as someone useful, but as someone personally important.
And Vegeta, whether he admits it or not, has been orbiting that same truth for years.
They are friends.
Not soft friends. Not normal friends. Not “let’s talk about feelings” friends, because apparently the Dragon Ball universe would collapse under the pressure of emotional vocabulary.
But friends.
Deeply, stupidly, violently, permanently friends.
Goku and Krillin may have started as the purer friendship, but Goku and Vegeta became the more powerful one. Not morally purer. Not kinder. Not healthier, for the love of Shenron, no. But stronger in terms of narrative force, mutual growth, and long-term relevance.
Krillin is the friend of Goku’s childhood.
Vegeta is the friend of Goku’s endless becoming.
That is the cleanest way to put it.
And maybe that is why it feels like Krillin was sidelined. Because he was. Not erased. Not unloved. But sidelined. The story made a choice. As the threats became bigger and the transformations became wilder, Goku needed someone who could stand in the same mythic space as him. Krillin could not. Vegeta could.
So the emotional center shifted.
From the best friend who trained with him…
To the rival prince who could match him.
From the boyhood bond…
To the adult obsession.
From “we grew up together”…
To “you make me stronger.”
And honestly, that second dynamic is what Dragon Ball eventually becomes.
Dragon Ball starts with adventure and friendship. Dragon Ball Z transforms into legacy, rivalry, escalation, sacrifice, pride, fatherhood, and the terrifying intimacy of knowing exactly which person can push you past your limits. Goku and Krillin belong to the first heart of the series. Goku and Vegeta belong to the second.
That does not make Krillin irrelevant. It makes him the emotional foundation that gets built over.
Which is sad.
But also realistic.
Sometimes your childhood best friend is still your childhood best friend, but they are not the person walking beside you in adulthood. Sometimes you love someone deeply, but your life grows in a direction they cannot follow. Sometimes the person who knows where you came from is not the person who understands where you are going.
For Goku, Krillin is where he came from.
Vegeta is where he is always going next.
That is why the Goku and Vegeta friendship wins the long game.
Because Vegeta can keep up.
Because Vegeta can push back.
Because Vegeta understands Saiyan hunger.
Because Vegeta’s family mirrors Goku’s.
Because their sons become the next version of their bond.
Because they fused. Twice. Two different ways. The narrative was not exactly being coy there.
Because Goku’s best banter is with Vegeta.
Because Vegeta helps where Krillin cannot.
Because when the stakes become cosmic, Goku looks beside him and the person there is not Krillin anymore.
It is the rebel prince.
The rival.
The equal.
The friend.
So yes: sorry, Krillin. You were Goku’s first best friend. You mattered. You still matter. Your death changed everything. Your courage is undeniable. Your place in Goku’s heart is permanent.
But Goku kept getting taller, stronger, stranger, and more impossible. The story kept raising the ceiling, and you eventually could not reach it.
Vegeta could.
And that is why Goku and Vegeta became the real BFF endgame of Dragon Ball.
Not because their friendship is sweeter.
Because it is stronger.
Because it survives rivalry, death, pride, humiliation, fusion, family, fatherhood, and the endless need to surpass each other.
Because they are not just friends who love each other.
