How do you think each of the Paladins would celebrate birthdays? What about Coran & Allura?
I think Lance makes the biggest deal about birthdays like if it’s your birthday and you didn’t tell him a minimum of three weeks in advance he’ll complain about it and scramble around trying to plan something. In general, this is something from his family, where like- basically anything remotely approaching a holiday is taken as an excuse to have a big family gathering, invite all relatives and the neighbors you like, party.
This is a bit of an adjustment to the rest of the team.
Hunk’s used to it, since he’s known Lance, but his family was a little more like... “it’s your birthday, we’ll have a really nice dinner and cake/presents and maybe one or two friends if you really want” but it was more of a quiet family affair.
With the Holts, things were also confined to the family which could be just a little bit lonely because sometimes Pidge would have birthdays while her dad was gone on a mission. He’d always try to make it up to her either before or after depending on the time. They’d usually go to somewhere exciting like a theme park.
Shiro is more of “celebrate with friends and family”, unless he was on an assignment he’d usually visit his parents’ home. He likes to put effort into others’ birthday parties since he sees them happen a lot.
Keith forgets about his birthday, basically all the time. Shiro is better at remembering his birthday than he is, like at least once in their relationship Shiro got him a present and it took Keith a while to remember what day it was. He basically doesn’t really get why birthdays are that big of a deal since he rarely had someone to celebrate with so it’s Just Another Day to him. Once he discovers this is not how the rest of the team, especially Lance, feels about birthdays, he kind of panics because how is he gonna remember everybody’s birthday, he’s gotta get presents. Where? How? They’re in space. Everybody’s gonna think he’s some kind of birthday-hating goblin what does he do aaaah
Having to Actually Think About Birthdays is something partially heartwarming for Keith but mostly, really stressful.
Since Alteans live as long as they do, celebrating birthdays is seen as kind of a youthful thing- Allura still celebrates but it’s considered a bit of an indulgence at her age. When she has her first birthday since the loss of Altea Coran totally drags all the paladins into making sure it’s a nice one, no you don’t have a say in the matter do you want the princess to be lonely on her birthday were you people all raised in a barn.
At Coran’s age they celebrate decades rather than every year so it’ll, uh, be a while before he has a birthday party.
