#shotor

you know when you bond through this kind of jokes

My take is that his daddy issues most typically manifest as PATERNALIZING. The way Lotor models his behavior after Zarkon's even when working specifically in opposition to him lives rent free in my head. :)

(Warning: I went in dark directions with this.)

When it comes to a human like Shiro or Keith, he's always gentle but firm even when just gentle would have been more appropriate. He does not ask, he pushes. He gaslights Shiro's perception of things far more than a little, having a tendency to sneak little reminders into intimate conversations that Shiro's memories have been unreliable before. For someone like Shiro, who is already traumatized and vulnerable, this develops a lot of weird unhealthy dependency after a prolonged relationship, eroding Shiro's confidence and instilling a sort of learned helplessness, allowing Lotor to act out his fantasies of good parenting... on his lover. He prefers to top. He brings up spanking, ostensibly as a way for Shiro to heal from the violence done to him, suggesting that Lotor spanking him gently with his consent could be empowering. And the thing is that Lotor genuinely believes that this is why he's bringing it up and not because he craves to discipline the person that's becoming ever more dependent upon him. Even when bottoming and "yielding" to Shiro, Lotor's in charge with a sort of soft power, giving feedback and requests in ways that mold Shiro to Lotor's preferences without it being bilateral. Shiro's a giver, he feels good taking care of others, so it feels to him like he has finally learned to accept being cared for in return. It doesn't really register for him that what's really happening is that he is relinquishing his autonomy but Lotor is not taking care of him, he's imprisoning him.

Keith is only a little less vulnerable to this than Shiro, bringing his own big huge bag of daddy issues, BUT he does have a mom now, AND his mom asks very skeptical questions of his relationship, AND he still has a bit of a violent and stubborn streak, so he may or may not have snarled, "You are not my Dad," at some point, and this may or may not have stopped Lotor in his tracks, flushing fully, and entertaining the idea of maybe... having Keith tell him what to do. Keith enters the more dominant role of their relationship with all the same bull-in-china-shop grace as his debut as the Black Paladin, but Lotor is SO into it. He's getting railed at a frantic pace with his hair gripped painfully in Keith's fist, wrists being gripped together in the small of his back, and he's just so hot about it he can barely breathe, spreading his knees wider for more. And if Zarkon occasionally flashes through his mind... well... no. No, that didn't happen.