it feels like a lot of people look at him and go ‘teehee my fav who’s committed war crimes!! <3’ but. only want to appreciate him as the archetype of ‘vaguely problematic fav’ and not actually engage with the specific things he’s done. i woke up like 5 seconds ago so maybe that’s not worded perfectly but that’s the vibes i get if that makes sense
no dont worry i get what you mean, that is kind of the vibe. and to be fair i feel like the cast kind of ended up doing that later on too, like after that plot was done the reaction is Aw he's such a problematic little baby hotboi (typing that feels like when adults call a dog a doggo i hate to say it but it pains me) lets draw him as a chibi eating soup. like no he was able to get away with what he did (giving away the beacons, working With ikithon and ludinus and igniting a war that destroyed sm peoples lives), frame another innocent man for it who ended up tortured and given to the empire as a prisoner too, lied to all of tmn about it to their faces, putting them in danger by asking them to retrieve the beacons for him when he knew where they were and who had them. . he got away with this (in the plot, to the cast and fandom) because he's a young, attractive, extremely wealthy, privileged and politically powerful man. like ?
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A drabble for an anon asking about the prisoners watching their music videos! This is focused on specifically Mikoto’s initial shock at seeing MeMe for the first time, but just know that Double comes with a whole new set of shocks as he truly listens to John for the first time ;-;
Mikoto was no criminal.
He didn’t know how to break into locked rooms, or hack into complex prison security systems. He figured there was no way in hell he’d be able to see these so-called incriminating videos that the Warden was recording, and had resolved himself to an eternity of wondering what they could be. He was shocked when he didn’t need to do a single thing to gain access to them – Es simply adjusted the computer monitor and told him he could hit play when (and if) he wished. Then they left the room.
“A-are you sure?” he called, but they were already gone.
Mikoto blinked at the screen. It showed a stretched version of his apartment couch, near his bathroom wall, broken to reveal sky above. He thought he could spot his tarot cards at the bottom of the frame. Had Milgram broken into his home to film this?
He scoffed, and hit play.
Distorted guitar started up. He flinched as his own face appeared for a moment – looking directly into the camera and making a wild expression he would never have made if someone was recording. His body tensed up more as he heard his own voice start to sing lyrics he’d never spoken before in his life. He wasn’t even a good singer, and here he was sounding like a professional.
There were plenty of ways to accomplish all of this, of course. Software could mimic one’s voice, making him say anything these crazy reality hosts wanted. A team could easily add some digital effects to a stunt double and match his appearance perfectly. Knowing that didn’t make the experience any less unsettling.
He watched himself commit a nasty murder. He watched himself return home bloodied. But it was all ridiculous. How could Milgram even claim that this was him? He’d never raised a hand to anyone in his life. Were the other prisoners’ videos as outlandish as this one?
But then, a switch.
The song shifted to a new melody. He appeared to wake up from his couch, and suddenly Mikoto got the sense that this was him.
He was struck with how familiar this new segment sounded. It simultaneously felt like a favorite song he must have played on loop not too long ago, and one that he’d never heard before. As it played, each new note and lyric felt right on the tip of his tongue.
It ended as quickly as it began. The song returned to the heavy-metal-murder aesthetic it had started with, and once again he felt like he was watching a cheap copy of himself onscreen. He watched another murder, a shower scene (had the warden seen all that? How embarrassing…) and then he turned to his bathroom mirror.
At the same time as his musical counterpart, Mikoto leapt backwards in horror.
His eyes remained glued to the screen. His hand flew up to grab the lower half of his face. It was fake, he told himself. AI and CGI and all that. It was fake. It had to be.
Something deep inside of him said “no. That’s real. That’s me.”
Something else deep inside of him echoed the sentiment.
The video was less than four minutes of music, but by the end he was panting and tugging at his hair as if he’d endured hours of prison torture. He burst out of the room. He sucked in breath after breath. The melodies still played in his mind, lines repeating in his memory as he tried to put as much distance between himself and that little television screen.
He found the others in the common room. They gave him a knowing look, but somehow he knew his experience had been very different from their own. Es approached him.
They studied his expression for a moment. Thankfully, they didn’t ask anything stupid, like “how did it go?” or “what did you think?”
Instead, they just told him, “if you ever want to watch it again, just let me know, I can get it set up for you.”
He would want to see it again. Of course, it would be better, then. He would take a moment to calm down. He’d watch it later and everything would be okay. He’d have a clearer mind. He’d pick out all the little camera tricks they used to make it. He’d be sure it was a fake, and laugh about how ridiculous he was being now.
Of course. Of course.
He nodded to Es, unable to produce any words. Es left him.
The rules in this prison never made any sense, but in this case, he was grateful. He wouldn’t need to figure out any snooping or hacking to get access to the video again. After all, he was no criminal.
… he wasn’t, was he?
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i need to know everything about your pjo voltron au
okay so basic plot premise: Thalia, Luke, Jason, Percy, Maria di Angelo, and Bianca all work at the Garrison and get sent on 3 separate missions (Thalia & Luke, Jason & ??? or maybe he's just by himself, then Percy & Maria & Bianca) which are all "lost" and they're declared dead by the Garrison.
Of course they were actually all abducted by aliens. Maria probably dies pretty early on in that whole situation. Thalia gets separated from Luke and ends up escaping and becoming a rebel. Luke, Jason, and Percy & Bianca all separately (except for Percy & Bianca) end up gladiators. Luke becomes The Champion and basically ends up a Kuron/Sendak-type character situation. Is he being mind-controlled? Unclear. He has a giant alien scythe-sword though. Bianca probably dies buying Percy time in the arena. At some point Percy and Jason find each other and decide to try and stick together.
Hazel is a human raised by her galra dad in space with the Blade of Marmora. She knows she has a half-brother through her dad out there somewhere but not anything else about him. She ends up running into Jason and Percy on a mission and helps them escape cause they're humans too.
Back on Earth, Piper, Leo, and Annabeth are all Garrison students. Or Annabeth is possibly in a Keith-type situation where she used to be a student but got Kinda Pissed Off about all her loved ones disappearing into space and ended up getting kicked out. Nico is in a Pidge-type situation where he snuck in as a student under a false name to figure out what happened to his family's mission. Percy and Jason crash on earth, the gang finds them, they find the Blue Lion, and Percy pilots it to the Altean castleship where they meet Reyna and Frank. Reyna is the Altean Princess, because her sister Hylla was queen. Frank is the son of a high-ranking general or something and he and Reyna are a duo.
Rest going under a cut cause this got long -
Lion adventures happen - Annabeth pilots the Green Lion, Jason pilots the Black Lion. Nico finds the Red Lion and meets Hazel when he does and brings her back to the castle. Hazel pilots the Yellow Lion. Nico very quickly realizes he's half-Galra and Hazel's brother and joins the Blade of Marmora. Percy swaps from Blue to the Red Lion. Piper starts piloting the Blue Lion. Leo, Frank, Reyna, and Nico end up the home-base support team. Percy probably keeps the blue paladin armor and Piper gets the spare pink armor for color association reasons and also cause that's usually the format for every iteration of Voltron anyways. It works out nicely. Everybody has extra lion compatibilities too/every Lion has a back-up basically cause I'm still mad vld canon dropped the lion lore/sentience plotlines and we never got cool dynamic lion swapping instead of just the usual single switch. We're having fun here.
Then everything else I don't have much for other than Annabeth and Nico basically swap Keith and Pidge roles once they join Voltron so Nico goes and has his galra identity crisis adventures and Annabeth reunites with Thalia at some point, who is basically in a Matt-type role. And Luke functions as the Sendak-level antagonist who Annabeth probably gets to fight with a swap back to Keith's role in a whole Keith & Kuron emotional situation. Kronos and Gaea are probably analogous to Zarkon and Haggar/Honerva here but not necessarily in that order, and obviously it's more of an either "Emperor and his advisor mom" or "Empress and her prince son" but in either one somebody's doing magic and people are probably getting possessed. Hades, Persephone, Iaepatus/Bob, and Damasen are all with the BoM. The Titans/Giants are probably all Empire generals. Who's Lotor? Octavian? Calypso? I don't know. Who are all the gods? I dunno. We'll workshop it.
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