Loner-Turned-Friend

So you got yourself a character in a series who's a bit of a lone wolf. They fight (and even win) their own battles, they reject being a part of the hero's group, and they may even rebuff their friendliness. More importantly, they may even enjoy being by themselves no matter what society tells them.

And later on in the series, the character is now the newest member of the band of friends. How so? There could be two common reasons for this sudden Character Development. One, it could be that they got tired of being alone for a very long time considering that there are heavy consequences of being a loner for too long. They may have realized they long for companionship after all, despite being unfairly mistreated for being different. Another could be that they may have been inspired by the All-Loving Hero's heartwarming speech about The Power of Friendship or that the character learns An Aesop about accepting others' friendships even if they were initially dismissive of them.

Sometimes, this trope can play the character in two ways. One, they still retain their introverted characteristics but are considered a loyal teammate/friend to the group. Two, they are a permanent member of the team and show no hint of introversion.

Note that this trope doesn't always have to be about a character joining The Hero's group. It can also apply to The Protagonist of the series, too, particularly the Anti-Hero. A group of characters will become drawn by the hero without them knowing it and they will be dismissive at first, but later on, they accept them into their life.

This is usually part of the introduction for The Lancer, or the Sixth Ranger, or a Sixth Ranger that eventually evolves into The Lancer.

Compare Default to Good and Neutral No Longer which is mainly about choosing an alignment in a setting of Black-and-White Morality, while this trope focuses on solitary and asocial characters becoming friends with people. Compare Can't Live with Them, Can't Live Without Them if the character grows accustomed to another character's presence, and compare Bully Turned Buddy, where the new friend was outright antagonistic or abusive at first. Loony Friends Improve Your Personality may enforce this trope. Related to Friendless Background.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Guts, the main protagonist of Berserk, starts off as a mercenary loner struggling with his inner demons of anger and has no interest in making connections with others (and he Hates Being Touched). Throughout the series, though, he finally begins to accept his new friends in the form of the Band of the Hawk. After the original Band of the Hawk gets almost completely wiped out, Guts gradually goes through this again with his new True Companions.
• Uryu Ishida from Bleach was more of an intelligent loner and an Insufferable Genius to boot. While he will deny being friends with Ichigo, he becomes a frequent ally to him and the other Soul Reapers, only when their goals are the same.
• At the time of her introduction in Case Closed, the primary reason Ai Haibara hung around with Ayumi, Genta, and Mitsuhiko was because they were friends with Conan. She would often stand off to the side during whatever activity they were doing if she didn't skip it entirely. As the story goes on, the Detective Boys' friendship gradually wins her over and later arcs, such as the Sweet and Cold Delivery Service arc, open with Haibara being a much more active participant in their activities.
• Digimon:
  • Koji Minamoto from Digimon Frontier was a loner at first, distancing himself from Takuya and the others when they all first arrived to the Digital World. It's not until Episode 6 that he permanently joins the group.
  • Dorulumon from Digimon Fusion started as a lone wolf and a former member of the Bagra Army. At first, he refused to be a part of the Xros Heart, but as soon as Tactimon tells him about his past, he changed his mind.
• Dragon Ball: In the original Dragon Ball, Piccolo was born as a loner due to Goku killing his father King Piccolo and trained himself for the World Martial Arts Tournament during his isolation. He pulls a genuine Heel–Face Turn during Dragon Ball Z after becoming close to Goku's son Gohan, and since then, he is now one of Goku's strongest allies.
• Shin of Eyeshield 21 was a loner with No Social Skills until he joined the football team in middle school, making this development show it was through football that he was able to make friends.
• From Full Metal Panic!, Sagara Sousuke was a loner avoiding others due to following business-related orders, but this didn't stop him from ending up with a group of True Companions.
• Yukiteru Amano from Future Diary started as a loner in school due to his anti-social personality, but he does try to get better in making friends. Unfortunately for him, Yuno doesn't want anyone closer to him. Eventually he manages to make a small group of friends with his classmates, but later on, he kills his friends in his quest for Godhood. He was a freaky loner who got better, but it was too late for entirely other reasons.
• Shido Fuyuki from Get Backers started off as a loner with the ability to talk to animals (and considered them as friends), but it took one Get-Backers member, Ginji, to make him more of a different person.
• Mizuki from Kamisama Kiss. He has been alone tending to an abandoned shrine for decades when Nanami meets him and by that time he is ready to change his situation a bit. Unfortunately, the way he goes about doing so nearly winds up getting him killed by Nanami's Battle Butler, Tomoe.
• In Moriarty the Patriot, much of Sherlock's character arc is turning from a solitary person to one with friends (particularly William and John, and by extension the people in their lives).
• Naruto:
  • Sasuke Uchiha was this for a time. He went from being an Aloof Ally to The Rival and eventually forms a rather begrudging friendship with Naruto. Now, he's cemented his status as the Rival Turned Evil, and Naruto just can't let go of his 'friend' despite him Jumping Off the Slippery Slope.
  • Naruto Uzumaki himself counts since he was a loner in the years before the series began. In fact, part of the reason why Naruto and Sasuke became friends is that both of them understood what it was like to be truly alone.
• Mikagami Tokiya from Flame of Recca begins as a revenge-driven loner with a cold attitude towards everyone except Yanagi, who was the reason he warmed up a bit, and he later became an official member of Team Hokage.
• After the death of her grandfather, Yue Ayase of Negima! Magister Negi Magi isolated herself from others and even blew off (and insulted) Haruna, Konoka, and Nodoka when they suggested that Yue be their friend. After Nodoka tells her that "Anyone who likes books cannot be a bad person", Yue changes her mind and decides to be their friend.
• One Piece:
  • Tony Tony Chopper was an outcast due to his weirdness in character, but that all changed when Luffy and the others accept him into his crew.
  • Zoro counts as well. Though he did have two fellow bounty hunting friends (Johnny and Yosaku) back when he was one himself, he traveled alone, didn't seem to have any close relationships (nor did he appear to want any), and was feared and avoided by the general public due to his reputation as a "demon." Then Luffy came along and saved him from execution, and Zoro not only warmed up to him very quickly but became his loyal Number Two, as well as a friend and protector to the new crewmates they recruited afterwards.
  • Brook also qualifies, as he spent fifty years alone before meeting up with the Straw Hats. Despite being a bit more sociable than others on this list, this did cause him to spend much of his introductory arc fighting alone, rather than endanger Luffy and the others by asking for their help.
  • Robin as well, who spent twenty years on the run from virtually everyone in the world and betraying others in order to survive. It took a lot of effort on the parts of the Straw Hats, but now she cares very deeply for them all.
• Fakir from Princess Tutu started off as an Ineffectual Loner for almost the entire first season, but decided to (reluctantly) team up with Ahiru from then on, although another season later, he still has the tendency to revert back to do things by himself.
• Rozen Maiden: Jun started as a Hikikomori because he was rejected by his peers for his interest in sewing, which made him very depressed. Thanks to Shinku, he finally comes out of his shell and is close to her and the other crazy dolls.
• Sailor Moon has all the Inner Senshi, for different reasons:
  • Ami was ostracized due to her great intelligence and alleged snobbism (and possibly her parents' divorce, not helped by the implied infidelity). It's not until Usagi befriends her that people start talking to her.
  • Rei starts out as an outcast due to the strange disappearances happening around her home, and, in the manga, her own standoffish character. Again, Usagi pulls her out of this.
  • Makoto has a terrible reputation as a thug (her being an orphan in Japan would only reinforce said reputation), and everyone is just too scared to come close. Everyone except Usagi, that is.
  • Minako started out having friends, but her year as Sailor V before meeting the others is implied to have caused her to neglect and then lose said friends, only to find new ones when she met the other Inner Senshi.
• Captain Gundam from SD Gundam Force was a loner rebuffing companionship from Shute, but he realizes that The Power of Friendship was the very thing to activate the Soul Drive. Thus, Captain officially accepted Shute as a friend.
• Barnaby Brooks Jr. from Tiger & Bunny. Even though he's somewhat of a nice guy, he's too introverted to be interested in making any intimate relationships, but thirteen episodes later, he and Kotetsu are now Heterosexual Life-Partners.
• This is the whole plot in Welcome to the NHK where Satou decides to overcome his anti-social demeanor and make friends with others since he doesn't enjoy being alone.
• Tsume from Wolf's Rain. He is described as a "stereotypical angry anime loner" who withdraws himself from his allies, but despite this, he eventually grew respectful of Kiba and became a permanently loyal member of the pack.
• Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL:
  • Ryoga "Shark" Kamishiro started as the Ineffectual Loner Rival to Yuma. Then came his Defeat from Yuma, and now both duelists are good friends with each other.
  • This happens a bajillion times after that, with Yuma typically dueling a character with even worse social skills than him, and inspiring that duelist to be his friend, and nicer in general.
• Before Hiei in YuYu Hakusho met Kurama he was on his own for years. Even after he joins the hero group he stays alone most of the time.
• Kiyo Takamine from Zatch Bell! begins as an introverted loner due to being picked on by others and started skipping school, but that all changed when Zatch's influence made him more of a sociable person. Thus, the two are officially friends.

Fan Works

• Hetalia: Axis Powers fanfic Gankona, Unnachgiebig, Unità: Italy did this to both Germany and Japan. His warmth melted their cold hearts, and they became incredibly close to him.
• Kid Icarus Uprising 2: Hades Revenge has an example with Pyrrhon. In canon, he is not aligned to any faction. In the fanfic, he is a member of the Forces of Nature. No reason is ever given for his sudden alignment to them.
• In Mirai SMP, Techno has a 1 in Teamwork, and is initially prepared to work alone — that is, until he stumbles upon the scared weaklings Cooper and Travis and feels bad for them, and decides to team up with them, offering his protection.
• In Harry Potter fanfic Shifting Lines, Remus and Sirius are both this for different reasons. Remus needs to keep his secret and his parents tell him not to make friends, but he does anyway. Sirius has only associated with people he didn't like but his parents deemed acceptable so when he went to Hogwarts he was finally able to make friends with whoever he wanted.

Films — Live-Action

• Hugh Grant from About a Boy starts off as a loner enjoying himself a lot until he makes friends with 12-year-old Marcus.
• Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019): Somewhat downplayed. At the start, Mark Russell has isolated himself from everyone after his son's death five years ago, only to get recruited by Monarch's top brass (whom include his former colleagues from before his son's death as well as several new faces). At first, he's an obnoxious blowhard who makes his opinionated and biased view on the Monarch brass's way of managing the Titans clear (yet he somehow makes Sam Coleman want to befriend him like metal being drawn to a magnet), but he mellows later on. In Godzilla vs. Kong, the Monarch executives Mark previously worked with are completely absent from both the film and novelized versions of the story.
• The Hangover: Alan, the Cloudcuckoolander Manchild of the group, initially considered himself this.
  Alan: You guys might not know this, but I consider myself a bit of a loner. I tend to think of myself as a one-man wolf pack. But when my sister brought Doug home, I knew he was one of my own. And my wolf pack... it grew by one. So there... there were two of us in the wolf pack... I was alone first in the pack, and then Doug joined in later. And six months ago, when Doug introduced me to you guys, I thought, "Wait a second, could it be?" And now I know for sure, I just added two more guys to my wolf pack. Four of us wolves, running around the desert together, in Las Vegas, looking for strippers and cocaine. So tonight, I make a toast!
• The film Henry Poole Is Here deals with the main protagonist moving back into his old neighborhood, spending time alone suffering a disease that will eventually take his life. Thanks to a nosy neighbor, Henry begins to accept help from others which cured his disease and changes his perception of life.
• Roustabout: Charlie is a drifter without any ties and is determined not to get himself too "involved" with the carnies, only wanting to collect a guitar and repairs for his motorcycle which they owe him. He ends up falling for Cathy and saving the carnival from getting shut down, ultimately accepting the carnies as his family.
• Perry from The Wanderers is basically a lone wanderer.
• Magneto in X-Men: First Class when he met Charles Xavier and his group.

Literature

• Harry Dresden of The Dresden Files. In the first few books, he started off as a loner, but a few books later, he formed some bonds with other characters like Murphy, Thomas, a couple of Knights of the Cross, and so forth.
• In The Lord of the Rings, Aragorn is such a character, being a ranger. He joins Frodo and Sam in order to protect them.
• Toklo from Seeker Bears started off as a loner due to being rejected by his mother and was bitter because of it, but as the journey progresses, he accepts the other bears as his friends.
• In Vampire Academy, Christian Ozera was a social outcast who became the beloved boyfriend of Lissa and a good friend to Rose.
• In Varjak Paw, Cludge is generally shunned due being a large, noisy dog. However, he becomes makes fast friends with Varjak Paw (and by extent, his friends Holly and Tam.

Live-Action TV

• On The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr., resident bounty hunter Lord Bowler was a loner for the early part of the series, but then grudgingly becomes partners with Brisco.
• Angel was a loner during his backstory, due to his guilt and not wanting to risk attacking anyone. He came out of it for most of the series, though he sank back into it in season 2 in an attempt to protect everyone from his darkness like before.
• Karen McCluskey from Desperate Housewives was a rather bitter loner who initially served as Lynette Scavo's Sitcom Arch-Nemesis until it was revealed that her bad attitude stems from her son's untimely death. The two become good friends after Lynette helped Karen when she was suffering arthritis.
• Henry of Forever starts out deliberately isolating himself from everyone but Abe, to avoid "messy emotional entanglements" and caring about people only to lose them. Lucas tried repeatedly to get to know Henry, but was politely rebuffed, and the initial impression of most of the detectives was that Henry is "creepy." After Henry is kidnapped in "The Ecstasy of Agony" and rescued by Jo and Hanson, he makes a decision to join them at the local bar, and in "Punk Is Dead" he's seen joining them for a karaoke night. At the end of "Skinny Dipper" Hanson tells another investigator, "He's one of us."
• Rob from Ghostwriter first appears a loner that the team suspects in a case. Although he's a bit resistant at first, he ends up becoming their friend and joining the team after Ghostwriter revealed himself to him.
• On Happy Days, Fonzie was originally a loner who the other guys looked up to and occasionally consulted for advice, before becoming a Breakout Character and moving in to the Cunninghams' garage apartment.
• Kamen Rider Fourze:
  • Tomoko Nozama. She's a quiet Goth who chooses to be a loner, although she is hiding her true feelings. Thanks to Gentaro, she's become the seventh member of the Kamen Rider Club and graduated to a permanent Perky Goth.
  • Kengo is another example. He was a Jerkass who wanted to be left alone and denies the existence of the Club, but being around them mellowed him out and he became a strategist to Gentaro.
• This actually applies to pretty much all of the main characters of Leverage, before they meet each other: Parker has No Social Skills, Eliot has a dangerous job and an unpleasant past, Nate is busy drowning his sorrows, and Sophie has a gift for getting people to like her, but no real friends. Really, the only person who seems to have anything resembling a normal social life is Hardison, and even that is mostly online.
  Parker: Remember the other day, when you were playing with your imaginary friends?
  Hardison: They're not—I told you, they're my real friends, Parker, they're just not in the same room as me.
• This is part of Simon Bellamy's major Character Development from Misfits. He started as a quiet and socially-inept loner suffering from years of mistreatment and isolation, despite being a really nice guy who desperately desires for friends. After that, he becomes more of a confident member of the group.
• Dr. Cox from Scrubs was considered a loner in the very first episode, but it wasn't until the second where he started to hang out with the rest of the crew more often.
• Reginald Barclay from Star Trek: The Next Generation was seen as quite a loner in his first appearance. He surrounds himself with recreation of the other crew members in the Holo-Deck, but he soon becomes less like one as he gains the groups' respect and deletes the Holo-Deck versions.

Toys

• Kopaka from BIONICLE had to stop being a loner due to following his destiny along with the rest of his fellow Toa brethren.

Video Games

• In Disgaea 3: Absence of Justice, Mao spends the entire game as the Ineffectual Loner caring about his goal to defeat his father to become a hero and has the tendency to disregard the needs of others. During the course of the story, however, he begins to warm up to others and more or less sees them as friends, although he will never openly admit it.
• Final Fantasy games are all around this trope.
  • Squall Leonhart of Final Fantasy VIII started as the anti-social protagonist loner who throughout the course of the game developed friendships and has hidden feelings for Rinoa.
  • Amarant Coral of Final Fantasy IX was initially a loner who works as a bounty hunter living by the honor code of "only the strong survive". While he was the last character to join Zidane, he was still dismissive of The Power of Friendship, but that didn't last long when Zidane saved him from falling into his death, which is what changed his heart.
• The essence of the Fire Emblem series. Most of your party is composed of loners that you pick up throughout the game.
• In Knights of the Old Republic, most of your party is comprised of such characters. A dark Jedi who undergoes a Heel–Face Turn, assuming you aren't either a Jerkass, a republic pilot, a hermit jedi, or many others.
• Herschel Biggs from L.A. Noire was rather reluctant about being assigned partners, especially with Cole Phelps, and he would rather get the job done by himself. In the end, he does warm up and accepts Cole.
• Several examples from the Dysfunction Junction that is the Mass Effect cast:
  • Downplayed with Wrex in Mass Effect. He's a mercenary who prefers working alone to being in a large army, but Shepard's squad is small enough that he doesn't mind working with him/her. Thanks in large part to Shepard's influence, Wrex goes from a burned-out mercenary in Mass Effect 1 to chief of the Urdnot clan and de facto leader of the krogan in Mass Effect 2 and 3. In the second game, Wrex's reaction to meeting Shepard again is to immediately stop what he's doing, exclaim "Shepard! My friend!" and hug him/her. The third game also reveals that he's friends with Liara and Vitriolic Best Buds with Garrus.
  • Liara in the first game is a shy, awkward bookworm who prefers working alone in archaeological digs to being with people. She matures throughout the trilogy, befriending most of the squad and being a potential Love Interest for Shepard, but ultimately still prefers working with data to socializing.
  • Miranda in Mass Effect 2 is extremely goal-focused and doesn't like to waste time with frivolous socialization, but Shepard can defrost her icy demeanor, and she's a Love Interest for male Shepard. By 3, while still goal-focused (for understandable reasons), she has become one of the nicest people in the game.
  • Token Evil Teammate Jack from the second game is a loner as a result of being tortured and a child and being betrayed by every person she ever trusted as an adult. Once again, as well as being a potential Love Interest for male Shepard, being on Shepard's team changes her so much that, if she survives the second game's Suicide Mission, she's become a teacher by Mass Effect 3.
  • Thane Krios of Mass Effect 2 is an assassin who joins Shepard's squad in order to make the galaxy a better place before he dies. He's extremely introverted and meditative, but Shepard can still strike up a friendship with him, and he's a potential Love Interest for female Shepard.
  • Justicar Samara from the second game is married to her job, having given up all of her worldly possessions and personal relationships in her quest for justice. She still becomes close to Paragon Shepard, and, while she's a Not Love Interest, she tells him/her that in another world, where she wasn't a justicar, she would definitely want a relationship with Shepard. (Renegade Shepard...not so much.)
  • Mass Effect 2's Legion is a strange example. Being a Mind Hive robot comprised of 1,138 separate programs, and with the capability to connect to the larger geth collective, it's never truly alone. But, because it's a geth platform, it's distrusted by nearly all organic life (the hole in its chest? A colonist on Eden Prime shot at it with a rifle). As the third game confirms, Shepard is the first organic in over 300 years to actually interact with a geth for a purpose other than killing it. Even Tali, a quarian (who were driven off of their homeworld by the geth during the Morning War), considers Legion to be a friend by the third game.
  • Javik from Mass Effect 3 is an extreme example. He's the last living Prothean (having been in stasis for the past 50,000 years), and, as the Protheans' avatar of Vengeance, is focused on nothing except stopping the Reapers. Still, he obviously respects Shepard and becomes much more amicable throughout the game. If you discourage him from reliving the memories in the Echo Shard, before the final battle, he tells Shepard that, after the war is over, he's going to help Liara write her book on Prothean culture.
• Knuckles from the Sonic the Hedgehog series lives a solitary life born with a task to guard the Master Emerald in Angel Island, but became a trusted ally and friendly rival to Sonic.
  • Blaze from Sonic Rush is another example. It took the entirety of her debut game to learn how to accept help from others and make friends. Although she's still a loner who has to guard the Sol Emeralds in her alternate dimension, she still assists Sonic and the gang whenever she can.
• Valkyria Chronicles: Marina Wulfstan is portrayed as a loner in both the game, and the anime adaptation. She even gains a skill called 'Lone Wolf', which acts as a double-edged sword: it increases her accuracy the further she is from your other units. At optimal distance, it guarantees 1HK's. But it also causes her accuracy to suffer greatly, when near others.
• The World Ends with You: Neku Sakuraba started off as both a loner and a selfish Jerkass, but over the course of three weeks, he eventually learns of the value of friendship. In the Reapers' Game if he doesn't cooperate with others, he will get erased.

Web Animation

• Dreamscape: Betty was once The Shut-In because her universe didn't want to risk her breaking Melinda's seal, but became a loyal ally of Dylan and his friends after they helped her fight the witch.
• ‘’ Wolf Song: The Movie‘’ takes this to a new level with the character of Arrow, who starts off as a literal lone wolf and a tempered recluse, but as time progresses, he does warm up to various characters, notably Kara, who he goes from bickering with to eventually becoming not just a friend but her own love interest. sadly unlike many examples, he sadly doesn’t last long after that

Web Comics

• In Latchkey Kingdom, Ash presents themself as a loner, to the point that they freak out when their sister appears and starts introducing herself as such, as it would mess with their image. Even so, they've developed a friendship with Willa after "working together" to defeat the Titan.
• Sunstone has Allen, who back in collage was so cynical towards other people's attitudes towards his BDSM interests it took a while for him to realise Ally was actually being friendly. So much so that Ally had to resort to strong measures to get his attention and show him she had no reason to further the slander against him. Ever since? BFFs.

Western Animation

• The Ice King from Adventure Time was a bit of a loner due to him being ruler of Ice Kingdom, which is uninhabited despite having semi-sapient penguins and ice creatures to keep himself company. In fact, early seasons have him as the main antagonist before bigger, more credible threats appear. He soon warms up when he makes friends with Finn and Jake, especially after they learn of his tragic, tortured origins.
• Prince Zuko from Avatar: The Last Airbender. He once made a statement to Jet that being on your own isn't always the right path. He has also undergone a Heel–Face Turn and, although he wasn't widely accepted at first, he became a loyal ally and friend of Team Avatar.
• Darkwing Duck: The titular character started as a loner for dismissive of assistance from Launchpad and Gosalyn in the two-part pilot episode, but later on accepts the two as friends, despite still having the tendency to do things on his own again.
• Ed, Edd n Eddy: The three main characters serve as outcasts trying to fit in with the other kids, who seem to mistrust and mistreat them a lot (although Eddy gets this treatment the most and not the other two Eds). In the end of Ed, Edd n Eddy's Big Picture Show, however, the kids finally accepted the boys as their friends after realizing how cruel Eddy's brother was.
• Cera from The Land Before Time became this to Littlefoot in the first movie, although she still has the tendency to do things on her own due to her disagreements with him and the others in the later movies.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
  • At the very start, Twilight Sparkle is focused on her studies to the exclusion of nearly all social interaction. When Nightmare Moon usurps the throne and threatens to plunge Equestria into eternal night, Twilight tries to find the artifacts necessary to stop Nightmare all by her lonesome, but five other ponies insist on helping her. By the end of the second episode, Twilight realizes the six of them have become Fire-Forged Friends, and this epiphany proves necessary to defeat Nightmare Moon. From this point forward, Twilight becomes a firm believer in the Magic of Friendship, although her lack of prior social interactions later leads to some awkwardness between her and her new friends.
  • Zecora lives all alone in the Everfree Forest for reasons unknown to the viewer, but she didn't make an active effort to be alone when she went to Ponyville. The residents were so afraid of her that they would hide when she went to the town. When the members of the Mane Cast get to know her, they find she's actually a very nice zebra and they become friends, going to her on many occasions when they need help with magical issues.
• Although he was a minor character and only appeared in one episode, Mike Believe from The Powerpuff Girls (1998) is somewhat an example of this. He starts off as a loner with an Imaginary Friend who later caused trouble in the kindergarten class. After the girls defeated the evil imaginary friend with an imaginary friend of their own, Mike explains to them that he just wanted to have friends, so the girls accepted him as a friend.
• Mitchell from Ready Jet Go! was previously a Shrinking Violet loner, who wanted to join Jet's group of friends but didn't know how to fit in. However, once he sings with them in the pageant in "Holidays in Boxwood Terrace", he discovers in real time that he is being invited in. Sydney and Mindy reassure him that he can always be a part of whatever the group is doing. So Mitchell is technically now part of Jet's circle of friends.
• Lapis Lazuli from Steven Universe was quite the loner until she began living in the Barn with Peridot in Same Old World, and had settled down by Beta, even cracking inside jokes with Peridot in Gem Harvest.
• Raven from Teen Titans to the other Titans in the origin episode, although she still retains her coldly detached disposition (at least for a little while).
  • Robin and Cyborg were much the same in the origin episode. Robin had just left Batman and wasn't looking for a team. Cyborg was still hiding because he thought he was a freak. Unlike Raven, they've warmed up to working on the team by the time the series starts proper.
• Transformers:
  • Wheeljack from Transformers: Prime started off as a bit of a lone wolf who claimed to prefer being on the move rather than being tied down to any one place. While he fought well by himself and alongside Team Prime, he continued to gently rebuff their offers to be a more integral member of the team. He later claimed to prefer being by himself. Arcee however caught him in his lie and he eventually admitted that he just wasn't completely comfortable with change. Eventually, he joins Team Prime
  • Prowl starts Transformers: Animated as very standoffish and dismissive of the rest of the repair crew. After Bumblebee and Sari save his life, he reconsiders his previous attitude and warms to the rest of the team. A flashback near the end of the series confirms that he wasn't originally part of Optimus's team, and the repair crew first met him meditating on an asteroid in the middle of nowhere.

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