#also I can't explain my dislike for that ship that well in comparison to the othets it just. i dont like the dynamic romantically

[princemick]

im acc soooo curious of your notps. is one of them f1 or in a completely different fandom?

I have like theee notops in f1 that I actually like remember and genuinely avoid like the plague and they're ships that are like, actually popular.

piarles (my nr.1 notp that I just really really can't read or enjoy)

gewis (honestly more like smth i remember bc its on my dash sm so it annoys me more)

smick (just, I can't see it in a romantic way and it makes me uncomfortable most of the time lol)

all of them I like/love in a friendship dynamic but just genuinely can't do romantically

[airasora]

Plot Twist: Do a power move and ship Miguel with Chel to really stick it to Tulio! (Obviously this isn't a serious suggestion xD)

As for serious suggestions, I will admit, my brain isn't that creative for such stuff as well as being unsure what exactly you're looking for, I can't even explain any of my choices/suggestions lol.

For Girls I thought Lottie or Tiana from Princess and the Frog, Marina from Sinbad, Kida from Atlantis or Pcoahontas maybe?

As for guys I could only think of Milo from Atlantis or the Beast/Adam (After Quasi stole his girl)

For some strange reason I thought of either Nani or David from Lilo and the Stitch.

Now if you want smth more angsty or "toxic" for interesting dynamics, maybe Gaston or Eris from Sinbad...?

I also thought maybe Thomas from Pocahontas, but then remembered you made him Lina's brother in your Hollina AUs, but at the same time it'd be kinda funny for both Lina and Thomas falling for the fun-loving outgoing blondes.

And last one I kept thinking of Eric but we already had Sinric, but then again... they all got two hands so who knows.

Again idk enough movies or series probably to fit for Non Disney stuff and especially in the guys department I seem to be lacking ideas for, but I just pondered as a fellow Miguel fan. I always felt like an outlier.

Chel

I know you're joking, but honestly, I agree with the energy lolol xD

I know I'm gonna break some hearts here, but I REALLY don't like Lottie... x'D I get what they were going for, and I do think they accomplished that so I appreciate her in an objective fashion... but me personally? She just annoys me so much xD

Tiana and Naveen make me so sad cause their human designs were SO GOOD and then they're frogs most of the time - I almost wish their human designs had sucked so them being frogs wouldn't have felt like such a slap in the face Dx

I like that you said Chel wasn't a serious suggestion, but then suggest the other "native babes" like Kida and Pocahontas and I am ALL for Miguel getting the hot princess. If anyone deserves it, he does!

I like the idea of Pocahontas because with Miguel, rather than John Smith's initial dismissive and racist attitude, Miguel would (like we see in El Dorado) just run around and want to genuinely learn about her culture. He'd be so excited about literally everything and I could see Pocahontas falling head over heels with that. I think Pocahontas might be my favorite option so far!

My issue with Kida and Milo is the same I have for Hercules and Megara: their animation styles are a little bit too unique.

What I mean by this is that Atlantis' animation is very "sharp." The edges are SO square on, for example, their hands and I don't like when animation is too sharp or too soft - it gotta be just right!

Hercules has a similar, but ALSO opposite problem. If you take a look at Megara's hand here, it legit looks like the back of her hand is swollen, as if she got stung by a bee and that entire area swelled up like this. But no, this is just the animation style. And it freaks me out xD I dislike the sharp edges in movies like Atlantis, but the opposite extreme isn't good either.

These animation styles aren't so different from other (non)Disney styles that it takes me out of crossovers (like The Last Unicorn does, I will die on this hill, I hate that it's considered (non)Disney by majority of the crossover community xD) so I can definitely still ship characters from these movies. It's not that they are hard to work with, but that I'm just not a big fan off overly sharp or round character designs.

I've seen a few Miguel and Nani videos actually, and what is interesting is that in quite a few of them... Nani is toxic as hell xD Something you may have noticed about crossovers (and by you I mean anyone reading this) is that some characters are more often portrayed as the abuser in comparison to other characters, and what they all have in common is that they have a lot of scenes where they're angry - cause that can be used to represent abuse, toxicity or just being mean. Odette is also often used as the "abusive" character because she has so many scenes where she's angry - I think that's why Nani is used to portray that sort of character often in crossovers x'D

I can definitely see her fall for Miguel cause he and David are kinda similar? Good guys with good hearts, absolute himbos and loyal as hell. Which is kinda why I don't personally ship Miguel and David, there isn't quite enough contrast between them for me personally.

GASTON DESERVES NOTHING XD

Eris is a character I would edit with ALL THE TIME if it wasn't for her amazing, but pain in the ass hair xD

Thank you for all the suggestions! It gave a lot of food for thought, and it was fun to think about Miguel this much :D

[bearpillowmonster]

Donkey Kong Country 2

Every now and then, I like to have a yearly tradition, normally taking place around Christmas. For a while, it was an Aladdin movie every year. Next round it was Hunchback. Next round, it was to read a Star Wars book. Last year I finished the Thrawn trilogy but I also started Donkey Kong Country. I've played the games sparingly and I wasn't really a fan but I always appreciated what they did for gaming. I couldn't say that I ever beat the game and thought maybe the first was different from the rest, so I finished it last year and thought it was good but nothing to write home about unless you were there when it released hence why there's no review.

This year, I decided to keep the tradition and play DKC2 and I've always known that this was everyone's favorite but I've always found it to be the hardest and what's the point when Donkey Kong isn't even in it? Well, I understand now.

Let's start with the setting. Pirates. An easy concept to grab from especially since we had themes of it in the original, King K even being on a pirate ship of his own but we take it to a whole new level. The beginning of the first game had it very simply put, the bananas are gone, go get them back. This one, Donkey Kong has been kidnapped…I did not know that, that explains it then. So he enlists the help of Dixie Kong, which I also know is a fan favorite but I never understood why. She is though. When you switch characters in DKC, it was usually through a cool high five, this one, Dixie kicks Diddy out of the way and says "It's my turn." (At least in my head she says that) She glides with her hair which you already know I have a thing for if you saw me talking about Conker. Her idle animations are blowing gum and drinking a juice box. She plays the guitar at the end of a level. I like Diddy's precision but I can't say I used him all that much in comparison.

The bosses are better this time around (though a few are fairly similar). Overall, it's the better DK game. So what's wrong with it? Why did I dislike it?

You can run. I learned this last year in the original but it didn't hit me until now that I didn't know that as a kid and would try making these sloped jumps with no luck or speed behind them, that's partially why it was so hard. But it's still hard, mind you, especially when you're playing legit with lives and stuff. There are instances where it just doesn't seem plausible to do some of these things reasonably like the ghost ropes or the King Zing Sting boss, they're a bit too precise and-

THIS STUPID! THIS FRICKIN STUPID SNAKE LEVEL WITH THE TOXIC WASTE COMING AFTER YOU IN A TIMED MANNER BUT YOU HAVE TO WAIT FOR HIM TO JACK HIMSELF OFF TO JUMP HIGHER. I WAS YELLING AND SCREAMING "WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO DO?!" AND MY PARENTS EVEN GOT CONCERNED "WHO ARE YOU TALKING TO?" I WAS PREPARED TO GO OFF ON THEM GETTING IN MY WAY OF THE FIGHT BETWEEN ME AND…RATTLY. THEY MAKE HIM OUT TO BE A HERO BUT THIS GAME ISN'T DANTE'S INFERNO, IT'S ABOUT APES! I HOPE I NEVER SEE A SNAKE AGAIN. I DROPPED THIS GAME AND DIDN'T COME BACK WITH JUST A FEW LEVELS LEFT. GOOD RIDDANCE GREEN SLIME.

[gascon-en-exil]

A while back I had asked you about Monica. You said that you think she was just intended to be a joke character, not too much depth or taken too seriously. Since then, I have seen a number of takes about Monica. Some think she's as bad as Tharja/Faye. Some think she's obsessive/stalker. Some think she's harmless. Some think she's cute with Edelgard. And some think Monica haters are just anti lesbians and have no other reason to dislike her. Do you feel any different about Monica now? (1/2)

Also re: Monica, I heard someone say that her obsession with Edelgard is no different than Dedue and Dimitri, Catherine and Rhea, or Hubert and Edelgard. But I very much disagree. Dedue, Catherine and Hubert all stand out as characters for themselves. They shouldn't be reduced to simply an obsessive character and they're certainly not stalkers. I was wondering if maybe you might be able to explain what makes those Lord and retainers have a different feel than with Monica and Edelgard. (2/2)

I've seen various opinions on her as well, but my own hasn't changed much. I still dislike how much her attraction to Edelgard (and Dorothea) is used for uncomfortable humor, and that the writing avoids potentially interesting areas for relationship development - particularly in Monica's non-reaction to Edelgard telling her that she'd been willing to let Monica die if it had been more convenient - because they might appear to be too critical of Edelgard. It reminds me of Byleth having only sympathetic dialogue options when asked about Edelgard in SS/VW, or the conversations some mutuals have been having about how Claude is criticized in GW 's writing for some of the same things that Edelgard does (without criticism) in CF.

The comparison to those other characters doesn't hold up, because I can't think of a single time when their devotion is played for laughs. Even the most popular Dimidue meme is about Dimitri's strange eating habits, and not Dedue being overbearing. Monica does have moments where she feels less one-dimensional, namely her paralogue with Bernadetta and her appearance in Part 2 of AG, but those moments aren't integrated well with the rest of her character. Monigard (is that the ship name?) also has an uneven energy, in contrast to the cold professionalism of Edelbert or the mutually codependent passion of Dimidue, which makes it much harder to gauge how much Edelgard really cares about Monica. (Of course, then comes in the meta understanding of how Edelgard has always been written to have only one true love: the player-as-Byleth....)

[coralcatsea]

1, 4 and 9 for the salty asks?

1. What OTPs in your fandom(s) do you just not get?

HongIce: I can guess why people like it. I still don't feel like there's much of a reason to get invested – unless you specifically main one of them, I suppose.

SuFin: I wanted to like the Nordics, but I just can't seem to get into them. This ship, or at least the fanon version that was really popular for a while, always came off as pretty bland, too. I know a few more interesting traits have been added to Sweden and Finland since then, however, so it'd be nice to see if that might affect the ship in a way that would make it more interesting as well.

4. Do you have a NoTP in your fandom? Are they a popular OTP?

PruCan: I've never cared for PruCan for as long as I can remember. I've heard all the reasoning for the ship, I just don't think it makes much sense. It's definitely a popular OTP, probably the most popular Prussia ship along with PruHun, except I can easily see why PruHun is popular whereas PruCan seems so random. I don't really understand how it got to be so high up there when there's nothing about it that really stands out in comparison to some of the other ships, but that's just my opinion. I'll give the details of why it doesn't make much sense to me if someone is interested enough to send an ask/message me, but otherwise I'll stop here since I don't want people commenting or reblogging this to explain PruCan to me. Again, I know the reasoning. I simply disagree with it.

GerIta: This one makes more sense than PruCan, but I still dislike it. I can't help perceiving their relationship as that of the dynamic between a babysitter and a kid. I don't really feel like they're on the same maturity wavelength. Imagining them genuinely connecting is difficult for me. I know there's more to Italy than just being childish and cutesy, but that's what most people seem to focus on. Now, I will say that occasionally I find some content for the ship that has potential, but the majority of the time it's not for me.

9. Most disliked character(s)? Why?

Mm...before I say anything, I want to clarify that 'dislike' in this context will mean mild annoyance or that I want to like them but am disappointed with their portrayal.

For the first category, Latvia. As a character, there's not much to him. I just find him kind of annoying and that's all.

The micronations are also in the mildly annoying category. Molossia and Seborga are probably my 'favourites', but I'm not really huge on any of them. I guess Sealand would have to be my least favourite since he gets the most screen time out of all of them, and honestly I feel like while it's cool to be informed of their existence, most of the time spent on them could be better spent on fleshing out other characters.

That leads me to the second category. Characters I want to like, but am disappointed with. Italy, Canada, and the Nordics.

Okay. Italy. Some canon and fanon moments with him ARE funny, don't get me wrong. Still, I feel like this character has so much potential that doesn't get used. His interesting sides are barely explored in favour of him being cutesy. And repetitive. There is hope, though. Italy bragged to England in one of the recent strips and that's something a little different. Maybe we'll get more stuff like that.

Then there's Canada. I will say that he has certainly gotten more fleshed out thanks to some of the later strips, but it was primarily exploring his passive aggressiveness and self-pitying. That's fine, he can have that, buuuut I feel like it should be balanced out with more of his interests and him getting along with other people. Example, I like the moment where he's excited about ninjas. I also like the strip where he and America decide to do a cooking show together.

Now for the Nordics. I wanted to like them. I really did. I was interested in the cultures, I had a book about Norway, I always thought the mythology was cool, I did a whole school project on Sweden and cooked some Swedish dessert, and – I'm going off on a tangent. The point is, I had high hopes for them and...they're kind of boring? The cultures barely got shown or talked about and their personalities don't grab my attention. I did mention that Sweden and Finland gained a little more depth after a while, but even so... I never understood the fandom hype around the Nordics. One day perhaps I can join it. One day.

And that's that! Anybody who reads this and doesn't like what I have to say, remember, we all have opinions! I'm not attempting to dictate what others can like.

Salty Ask List

[ganymedesclock]

You might have answered this question already, I can't remember, but....I've seen quite a many member of the fandom insisting that Lotor can't be trusted, but one argument that caught my attention is that Lotor's story about the colony he cared for that was eventually destroyed by Zarkon was CLEARLY made up as a means to gain Allura's trust and sympathy. Do you think you could explain why this isn't true?

I’ve made a lot of posts about a lot of general topics around this, but I absolutely have it in me to spin a specific counter-argument to this.

The short version of it is, I think that people are failing to understand Lotor, not in a “oh, he’s really sympathetic and much nicer than that!” way, as much as, they’re failing to understand Lotor as a schemer.

Because yes, Lotor is a fairly calculating and paranoid person who will do some considerable things to save his own hide. However, you have to consider that the entire show up to this point has illustrated very specific patterns for Lotor’s behavior. Furthermore, since the universe generally doesn’t fold over itself to be an accomplice, we have outside evidence on the subject we can gather from other sources.

I’ll discuss all of those in more detail under this cut.

Everything Lotor tells us checks out

Lotor’s story of the colony can be condensed to several claims.

He was placed in charge of a colony by Zarkon.

He chose not to depose the local population, but rather negotiated with them.

Part of his objective was harvesting quintessence sustainably without harming the planet in long-term.

When Zarkon discovered this, he ordered Lotor to destroy the planet.

Lotor refused, and Zarkon took the matter into his own hands. Presumably, Lotor was forced to witness this. This was the beginning of his exile.

The first two points we can actually find supporting evidence for all the way back in s3e1. Throk is a pretty good source in this sense- because he hates Lotor and doesn’t want him to succeed, most things that he and Lotor agree upon are probably fact, since Throk has absolutely no reason to lie for Lotor’s benefit.

Throk and his friend, who harbors similar sentiments, discuss that Lotor has ruled colonies in the past, and he specifically does so working with the local people.

This is further supported in s3e2 when Lotor and the generals clearly set out to spare the lives of the people of Puig, injuring and taking hostages but explicitly by design, killing no one. Lotor also promises to show the Puigians mercy before he actually starts bargaining with the Puigian leader.

Lotor’s proposal to Puig is that no matter what they choose, he’s going to pull his soldiers out of their planet and leave them alone. But if they take his side, then he’ll personally intervene on their behalf, and serve as their liaison to the empire- people who’ve never listened to them before.

This is a context when Lotor is not “playing nice” and has no reason to try and make himself look friendlier than he is. If anything, his appeal in s3e2 is much more emphasizing his strength and efficiency, and the forces he has at his disposal.

The prison Lotor had control of that’s seen in s5e1 is noticeably fairly humane, as far as imperial prisons go- there’s no experimentation or torture, the guard system seems entirely automated so you don’t have abusive bullies in the guards, there isn’t forced physical labor. It is by nature exploitative (it is a prison after all and these people are still being forced to work on things that benefit their captors, not themselves) but if you compare it to, say, Beta Traz, whose warden was using electrical torture to drag inventions out of Slav’s head, the facility in s5e1 is tame in comparison.

(And we’re not certain how long Lotor had control of it; given that Sam Holt was captured by the main empire and shipped off to a labor camp by them, Lotor would not be in a good place pre-s3 to have been poking around prisons looking for scientists, and the facility lacks Lotor’s distinctive color scheme and aesthetics. All of that would suggest it was an acquisition sometime after s3e1)

What he purports to have done in s5e6 aligns perfectly with his actual shown policies of colony management.

As far as gathering quintessence, this is supported both by Lotor’s overall attitudes about resource management- 

(he tends to be very frugal and cautious, wanting to carefully evaluate even his enemies, Voltron, before sending them into the rift. Even when he said it would work out in their favor if Voltron failed to return, he didn’t want to risk them without a good guarantee they could succeed at his objective for them)

-and that being able to tap quintessence directly from the rift, thus completely negating the need for new colonies, has been a priority for Lotor that he’s sunk a lot of energy and resources into. Far too much effort for it to be a mere farce. There’s far less expensive ways to put himself in a flattering light.

If Lotor’s so dissatisfied with the old system that he’s trying to tamper in mysterious periphery technology to avoid it, it’s fair to assume that dissatisfaction would have reared its head in less drastic solutions, like the sustainable quintessence farming he proposes.

The last three points boil down to that there is a long-term conflict between Lotor and Zarkon, and Lotor, so far, has tended to lose.

Nothing about Zarkon’s role in this is out of character for him. Zarkon is pushy, destructive, and already has a marked tendency of lashing out at people who don’t do things the way he wants them to, even if they fulfill the objective he tasked them with. 

Remember Prorok, who was framed as a spy and then dismissively made into a robeast even after Haggar made it clear she knew he was innocent- purely because he tried to capture Voltron on his own?

This is absolutely a guy who would burn a planet down because he doesn’t like how his resident crony is running things.

Furthermore, we even have specific evidence that this is something he’s done to Lotor before.

Again, Lotor’s frugal with resources. He doesn’t waste time doing things that won’t get him results. And in s4e3, he clears his schedule for the express purpose of throwing himself at Zarkon’s feet and showcasing how helpless and ineffective and eager-to-please he definitely is.

Lotor doesn’t want Zarkon to know anything he’s doing. S4e3 basically illustrates that Lotor, more than disliking Zarkon, fundamentally doesn’t trust Zarkon.

Which, also, as soon as Zarkon figures out even a scrap of what Lotor’s doing… he mobilizes most of the fleet to shoot down Lotor’s cruiser and kill him.

There’s no part of the story that really seems fishy compared to things that we know and have observed, most of it from interactions with people who have absolutely no reason to humor Lotor and in fact, would want to spite him.

This is not the way that Lotor lies

Here we move away from evaluating the claim and onto Lotor’s tactics.

Many people point to Lotor’s manipulation of Throk as an example where Lotor pretends to be someone’s friend, but if you actually look at what Lotor’s saying and doing, he actually never insinuated that he liked Throk, or trusted him, or even really intended to be all that nice to him.

When he offers his hand to Throk, Lotor explicitly says “Each ally gained only makes us stronger. While those who stand against us will be crushed.”

Throk just got baited out into single combat by Lotor who made it clear he knew Throk’s plot before it had gone into motion. Lotor then defeated him, insulted him multiple times (“Your repetitive attacks are getting you nowhere”, “your tactics are stale, and in the end your own aggression is your undoing.”) and then threatened him at swordpoint.

Now that he offers his hand, he does so with a smirk and an obvious warning. If Throk refuses Lotor’s hand, if he “continues to stand against” Lotor… well. Lotor made it clear what he intends to do.

The most positive sentiment this seems to express is “I’d like you to work with me… but believe me, Throk, you really don’t want to stick to being my enemy.”

Lotor’s threatening Throk. And literally the second his little photo-op is done, he makes sure to take his back out of Throk’s stabbing range.

So Lotor’s actual only con in that scene is the vague implication that Throk can cozy up to him by acting like an ally and recanting his attempted coup. The part Lotor’s lying about is the implication he trusts Throk a tiny amount, when he really doesn’t trust Throk at all, and his response is to get away from Throk immediately.

He doesn’t wait until Throk has served some kind of goal for him.

On other occasions, when Lotor presents himself as weak and vulnerable, he has a clear agenda that he wants the other person to attack him. When he’s trying to goad the paladins into using Voltron against him, he leaves the safety of the cruiser for a tiny fighter ship. When he wants Zarkon to dismiss and ignore him, he diminishes himself and pleads for Zarkon’s guidance.

When Lotor is trying to get people to ally with him… both on Puig in s3e2, and towards Voltron in s5e1 and s5e2, Lotor’s obvious tactic is to make himself seem strong and influential. “I can give you all of this information, I can give you an imperial alliance- Zarkon’s trying to get you to give me up because he knows losing me will weaken you, you don’t want that, do you? You’re playing into your enemy’s hands.”

Lotor has never been shown, at any point, to use his own vulnerability as a way to milk sympathy from people. If anything, even when he has a truly breathtaking potential sob story, he doesn’t even seem to consider it.

When his generals betray him, when he runs to the paladins as his basically desperate last-ditch solution, either time you would expect protest, you’d expect complaint, you’d expect “haven’t I endured and suffered enough here?”

But there’s nothing. Instead, again, Lotor’s entire appeal to the paladins boils down to “I’ll be useful.”

It’s very consistent with Lotor’s behavior that he doesn’t seek reassurance or comfort from other people when he’s hurt. He stiffly tells Allura he’ll be fine in s5e3 after having killed Zarkon.

He’s been given hundreds of opportunities to milk sympathy at this point. And at every turn, he doesn’t- to the point of even sitting on information that would make Allura more sympathetic to him. He has an entire conversation with her in s5e1 about how she doesn’t trust him because he’s part of the galra royal family, knowing full well that he’s half-Altean.

Instead, he reveals it obliquely by talking about his connection to Honerva- after Allura’s decided to trust him and after he’s already in power and his survival is no longer contingent on Voltron thinking kindly of him.

The story in s5e6 also comes after Lotor would actually have a vested interest in getting Allura to trust him. Why would she possibly hesitate to help him at Oriande if she’s already made up her mind to put him on the throne? One of these things is a far greater leap of faith than the other.

Furthermore, when Allura does say something positive in response, suggesting Lotor’s risen in her esteem, his response is to contradict her.

Allura’s comment that he stood up for the people of the ill-fated colony means that in that moment, she imagines him heroic, like herself standing up for what’s right against the force of the empire. She believed that he saved them.

Lotor himself is the one who immediately says “No. They all died. I’m a failure.”

And not in a particular way that reads as one fishing for sympathy, either- considering how quickly he moves on from the subject and doesn’t look at Allura until she thanks him for helping her.

Nobody who is trying to get their allies to trust them and think of them as helpful and competent tells a story about how they completely failed to do something that their allies see as objective number one, protecting people.

The way Lotor talks about this story does not paint him in a good light. It doesn’t describe him as a villain, but he basically accuses himself of being a bystander while an entire planet of people were murdered.

Anyone with any skill at manipulation or deception is not going to think this is a good idea. If the objective is to seem like a victim but with good ideas, there are so many more direct, “clean” ways to reveal that without making himself look bad.

This is not an effective tactic. Lotor doesn’t know Allura that well, and for a good part of this partnership she’s been coldly passing judgment on him. Hearing that the only past venture towards heroism was a complete failure where he lost standing (and emotional health) and gained absolutely nothing in return.

This serves as significant context to how Lotor talks to the white lion during his trial, and his responses to the universe in general

The idea that Lotor and Zarkon have lived in a cycle where Zarkon’s disrupted Lotor’s life, destroyed things and killed people he got close to, and isolated him lines up with a lot of Lotor’s issues- the obvious difficulty he has trusting people, the fact that he’s this slow to even tell Allura relatively trivial details about his life, including things that aren’t secrets.

Everyone at the Kral Zera knows Lotor’s half-altean- when this is a crowd of people that will want to brutalize, enslave, or kill him for it- but Allura, one of the few people that would welcome that side of him, doesn’t know until an entire episode later.

Lotor is an isolated, paranoid person who’s very slow to trust and reflexively tries not to show people anything that might be construed as “weakness”. This tactic was clearly not developed to avoid particularly empathetic people, either, because Lotor’s “I’m fine, absolutely not hurting at all” body language basically consists of going absolutely wooden and shutting down, which is probably the most not-fine thing you can do.

pictured: someone who is Definitely not regretting everything he’s ever done in chronological order.

So what does this come back to? There is an obvious narrative reason we’re told about the colony right then.

There’s a difference between Lotor and Allura the second they enter the trial in s5e6.

Allura looks around, confused.

Lotor startles.

This defines each of them entirely throughout the scene- Allura remains confused but never fearful, while Lotor never once considers that the lion isn’t something to be scared of. 

It’s not malice or hatred that Lotor’s lashing out with- the things that he says to the white lion make it very clear that he’s made a lot of assumptions about this creature, which explain why he attacks it at the end.

Lotor assumes that the white lion is coming to kill him. That it’s decided he’s not worthy, that it’s separated him from Allura- who’s “pure”, who wasn’t abused, who’s a “real” Altean raised in that culture by Alfor- and it’s here to drive him out of there and force him to give up because he doesn’t deserve any of this.

That everything he’s doing, everything he’s worked for to get here- is going to be taken away from him if he doesn’t fight tooth and claw to defend it right now, no matter what else might happen to him.

It’s set up as a very direct parallel to his killing of Narti- and just like that time, it has the same end result. There’s a price to pay for that action- but more than the target of his aggression, who dies quickly and silently... Lotor’s the one who goes on to suffer from it.

I have a personal pet theory that the Sincline ships will eventually take the form of Lions, and that Lotor’s ship, as the counterpart to the Black Lion, will be a white lion. To me, I think this adds another layer to s5e6 and the trial.

Because Lotor’s not actually hurting anybody else that time, not like he did with Narti.

Lotor’s just hurting himself. This is one step in a cycle of self-destruction born out of Lotor’s fear and self-loathing.

This is where the story about the colony slots in perfectly. This is why it’s essential context before Lotor’s presented to the trial, and acts the way he does.

This is not Lotor telling Allura a sad story- this is Lotor telling the audience- without realizing it- why he’s so afraid, and why he hates himself so much.

Because everything he’s cared about before has been destroyed, because he feels like it’s his fault for never being smart enough, or strong enough, or proactive enough to stop it.

Because he’s been set up to fail. It doesn’t matter if he did everything else right.

When Allura’s confronted by the lion, she sees Alfor- who’s argued with her, but only ever because he had a point, who never meant her badly unless something else had gone wrong to force him against her, and that’s exactly how she talks to it. This isn’t right, this is a holy place, a life-giving place- this is not a temple for death, so the only right action can be not to fight.

When Lotor’s confronted by the lion, he sees Zarkon- who has never, in his experience, meant him well. The setting and context are irrelevant, the important thing is this enemy is here, and if he doesn’t have enough power to stop it, the colony’s going to burn again, all of his friends will die again.

And it’s going to be his fault again.

[head-and-heart]

A Dair and bellarke fan! Yay!! I've loved dair but I've always been shot down by my friends who strongly chair. Anyway, if you so please, could you find similarities and differences between fair and bellarke? I think the couples have a lot of common and both attract the same kind of shippers but I can't really articulate these similarities

Finding other Dair fans is so bizarre since I have met a total of zero (0) in real life, even though basically every other female friend I have has watched Gossip Girl. They all love Chuck and Blair. *sigh* How do you explain to a casual viewer that FUCK THAT SHIP IS SO MESSED UP??? no time to get into debates with casual viewers, they just don’t care enough 

aNywayyy

Dair. And Bellarke.

I have to admit that it’s been a really long time since I last watched Gossip Girl, and I was a pretty casual viewer. I don’t remember a whole lot about it, besides the important stuff. I remember that I liked Dan and Blair. I thought they were cute. Never actually got involved in fandom with them, though. I’ve just noticed that some of my mutuals like them too which is exciting because, like I said, I literally know NO ONE who likes them.

So disclaimer: I don’t remember many details about Dan and Blair and their relationship - my main recollection is of them talking over the phone as they watched movies alone on Valentine’s Day (was it Valentine’s Day? damn it’s been a long time) and also him helping her escape her abusive fiance. 

I think that for the most part Dan and Blair are pretty difficult to compare to Bellamy and Clarke because they ARE very different people, but at the same time I can definitely see why their relationship appeals to Bellarke shippers, so I’ll try to compare them on that basis.

Like Bellarke, their relationship started off antagonistically, but they eventually grew to be very close friends, despite never thinking it was possible (although the process for Dair was A LOT longer). An interesting comparison is that a lot of Dan’s initial prejudice towards Blair was based on the fact that he thought she was just some spoiled rich girl, which is interesting because one of th emain reasons that Bellamy didn’t take Clarke seriously in the Pilot was because she was “one of the privileged”. There’s that whole class divide thing going on too. 

I like Dair AND Bellarke because I felt like their relationships both developed very naturally (from what I can remember?). Especially on Gossip Girl, characters just randomly fuck each other and they all have weird awkward histories with each other and a lot of relationships start on the basis of “oh this person’s hot, lemme bang that” or hate sex. So much hate sex. 

Dair wasn’t like that. And in a weird way I think it may have partly been because of that initial dislike they held for each other. There was no moment for Dan or Blair where they went “this person is so hot I want to get in their pants” BECAUSE the nature of their relationship was antagonistic to begin with. It took them really getting to know each other and realizing that they had similar interests in literature and art, etc before they ever began seeing each other in that way. It was friendship first. That’s what I liked about it. And the fact that Bellamy and Clarke have such a strong friendship is one of the MAJOR reasons that I love that relationship too.

Dan and Blair also kind of have this partnership too? Like there were many occasions throughout the series where Dan and Blair would work together to solve something, different from Chuck and Blair’s scheming. I don’t really know how to explain it (it’s been tooooooo long for me to remember details), but I enjoyed that dynamic. They’re both so smart and I thought they worked really well together. Kind of like how Bellamy and Clarke work so well together, but I don’t think either of them guessed that they could possibly have such an effective partnership when they first met, and clashed.

A difference between them that I will say, however, is that I never thought Dair would be endgame. It was kind of obvious that Chuck and Blair was it. In fact, I never even saw Dair coming. It just kind of hit me by surprise a couple seasons in and then I went “oh okay this is happening, I kinda like it???” and just left me feeling disappointed that I knew it would never be endgame. 

Even though Dair wasn’t endgame, however, I like that they managed to maintain their friendship. I really feel like Dan and Blair just wanted the best for each other. They DID care a lot about the other, and they respected each other. It was a unique bond for Gossip Girl, in my opinion. Rare to have a pair to go from antagonistic to friends to lovers to friends again. But Dan and Blair did. They were supportive in surprising ways, and they often had each other’s backs even when other people didn’t. Honestly, it could have been the most groundbreaking (for lack of a better word) thing Gossip Girl ever did on that show if they made Dair endgame instead of Derena and Chair (like EVERYONE was expecting). Way more interesting story imo. But.

*sigh*

Sorry. I mostly have just started talking about Dair. But you wanted to know about Bellarke.

Let’s look at some things I pointed out about Dair:

Class difference. Started off antagonist but turned into a genuine friendship before they became lovers. Slowburn. Mutual interests - turns out they’re a lot alike in surprising ways. Partnership. Respect and support each other (once they became friends).

Those are all characteristics that belong to Bellarke as well. Actually, now that I look at it, I can TOTALLY see why Bellarke shippers might be attracted to that ship. It hits all my buttons. 

Of course, I’m forgetting tons of things. Probably forgetting a lot of the less pleasant aspects of their relationship too, so it’s probably best to take this response with a grain of salt. But I do remember that I liked Dair, and I remember those qualities that I listed about it. Not much else.

Damn. I should do a rewatch.

or should I? might just reopen old wounds *sigh*