I am flesh and I am bone

Kinda wanna build another pet.

Kinda also on zero sleep in the last two days and have been playing a lot of resident evil so I need someone to convince me to not make a dog that looks like the zombie dogs.

[ Five is in the garden, sitting on the grass with a big golden retriever seemingly sleeping on his lap, effectively pinning him in place. The dog's eyes are closed, but if one is observant, they might notice the tail wagging lazily behind him. Five has one hand on Sammy's head, gently scratching him between the ears as he tries to come up with what to say now that he's decided to announce his presence again.

He came back a few days ago after what feels like a lifetime away. He's found his other self, but he's been afraid to ask who else is around. Afraid about who might not be. But he's never been keen on wasting time, and while his memories are still fuzzy, it's better to rip the metaphorical ban-aid once and for all. ]

Ey, so...it's been some time. [ He's grown up, grown older, and even though it can't be seen because the dog is on his legs, Five left the damn shorts behind him a few years ago. There's also a tiredness in his eyes that wasn't there before. ]

I have two important questions;

Number one, who's not dead?
And number two, do we have any lint rollers?

[ As people can see by the sorry the state of Five's suit, now covered in fur, wearing dark clothes, and having a golden retriever as a pet is a bad combination. ]

It had been a long time since Five had been able to get more than just a couple of hours of sleep that weren't full of nightmares or hadn't been a blackout due to either an injury or just flat out drinking too much liquor. And well certainly it is a rarity that he lets anyone into his personal space, sleeping or not.

So it might come as a surprise to any of the house occupants, that happen to pass by the living room to find not one but two Fives passed out on the sofa. They might be even more surprised to see the pair huddled together for warmth and just general comfort. At this rate they really do look the part of twin brothers rather than two versions of the same person. This is probably the first time in a long time that either has fully let their guard down. And well they do look adorable while they are sleeping.

Anyone looking for blackmail fodder or to just enjoy poking the sleeping bear, now is the time to do it, because who knows when they will let this happen again. At least out in the living room...



[ooc; So this would be the day after Rey's date night with Steve, but before Five's post to everyone about how to tell the two of them apart. Anyone wanting to take pictures of them for proof that this happened are greatly encouraged! Prose or action brackets are fine for this fyi.]

[ Five is sitting cross-legged on the carpet living room, wearing the Academy uniform. There's nothing strange about that but instead of their regular black tie, he's wearing a dark burgundy one. There's also a very excitable, very small puppy on his lap, rolling around and either trying to playfully bite his fingers -which Five doesn't seem to mind- or waving his tail wildly and asking for belly rubs...that Five also provides as he speaks. ]

It's good to know that someone here can recognize me. [ Yes, he is talking about the dog. ] Due to the random Tear in the space continuum that afflicts the house and makes a duplicate of us from time to time, there are now two of me around. I'm the poor unfortunate soul that you all dragged to Disney World.

[ He had fun but he's not about to admit it, shh. ]

Given than most of you are less skilled than the dog, I'm wearing a different tie so it's easier to tell us apart. Please try to remember which one is w... [ Five doesn't get to finish because the puppy is now standing on his hind legs and licking his face, making the boy scrunch up his nose. Thanks for ruining his speech, puppy. Five reaches up to scratch the dogs between the ears affectionately, raising his chin to speak. ] Does anybody know any good dog names?

Rey was excited and not as nervous as she was anticipating herself to be. Tonight, she was going to have Steve over for pizza and a movie. A continuation of an earlier lunch date which went extremely well. A great first "date" and now, she was going to hang out with Steve again. He was a very sweet fellow who made her heart flutter and she couldn't believe they met and had exchanged numbers.

Her siblings advice on texting Steve (though she did not provide a name to her mysterious "friend") had gone pretty well, except the advice did not cover what to do if the objection of your affection texted you first. That had certainly thrown her for a loop, but it allowed them to talk, make plans...and now she was making sure the pizza was ordered, the movie was prepped and she had everything else she needed: water, soda if Steve wanted, and plenty of booze for her.

Which...actually reminded her of something.

Rey had thrown on an over sized emerald shirt with black leggings when she remembered she had to send a text to Five...or one of him? Both? Whatever the case, she needed one of him to pop over before her date arrived. Not that she was ashamed of her family but...she didn't think it was appropriate to have Steve and her eldest sibling meet--not yet.

Hey--There's still some coffee ice cream at my place. If you want it, come by in the next half hour.

Rey

Shouldn't take Five (one of them) long to read the message and pop on over...never mind the fact she put a time limit.

Now, she just needed to fix her hair a little. She had been wearing it in a pony tail all day, and she wanted to let it hang down.

Fair warning; Peter was trying to fix Elliot. Elliot ran away and is probably hiding under couches or up in corners.

[ Elliot being the animatronic dragon Peter made her when they were sixteen. With a few upgrades over the years (And one instance where someone found SKYNET-like coding in his 'protect_evie' protocols and had to rewrite it) Elliot is his own ball of chaos. More ferret than dragon, Elliot has a thing for scaring people and Evie didn't get to him in time to activate the Sleep function. ]

If you see him, keep your eyes on him and let me know where he is. Remember; he likes chasing light reflections so if you can get your watch or something to flash on the walls? You'll have him for a few minutes.


[private to harry:]

How do you feel about coming to the house tonight? With all my siblings and family here? This isn't a meet-the-family thing? Its just they're here and I don't really have a reason to drive back to my apartment.

I don't know about you guys, but I am so all for taking a trip to Magic Kingdom for two weeks.

Who can I count on to come with me to Galaxy's Edge to make a lightsaber and a droid?

[ Let's be real: Peter Benjamin Hargreeves/Number 8, can and will in fact turn the toy droid into a real working one. He just wants the awesome shell. No one should find that surprising. ]

Options in the comments. Not looking for much thread-jacking on this one, because they're going to be heavy-handed and in need of narrower focus.
CWs: drug abuse, overdose, anxiety/depression descriptions, potential suicidal ideation

( The setup/background )

We need a family photo. A new one, with Mom center stage. Not in our stupid Umbrella uniforms. But still, dressed nice-ish. Bring your significant others. Why not? Mom loves them just as she loves us, right? And yes, every Klaus is coming. All of you. Even the house-guests and new residents are invited. We'll take the Sears family photo place by horrifying storm. Just like we've done to the poor Lyft and Uber drivers.

It really is about time you all stopped whining, don't you think?

[ ooc: These are just some ideas for starters but feel free to go wild and make new ones, thread around, run into other characters at the mall who aren't part of the family...have fun ♥. For the mall, feel free to assume they all have money to spend from their inheritance and the like. ]


A) Ashes to ashes




B) New home & Shopping Mall trip

Hey, guys. Family and guests alike. I need your help with a couple things. First off, I need everyone. Each and every single one of you, to come down to my workshop. I have a project that just needs ten seconds of your time, five if you cooperate and do as I say. It's important. It's a gift for Mom.

Second: Once this is done, I need you guys to get mom out of the house so I can set this up somewhere for her to find.

I know the last part will be hard, given her protocols and everything, but do your best. This is important. It's about time mom got something nice that was just hers, right?


Thanks.

( The most important meal of the day. )

(  I can see how it sounds, I can feel how it sings  )

LISTEN UP, BITCHES

[does he have everyone's attention? okay, good.]

as you all may have noticed, there's been a girl wandering around here: darkish kinda hair, short, real cute, probably kinda timid and afraid? her name is dahlia and she's my friend and if any of you hurt a single hair on her head, people will learn why you don't get on my bad side

okay, that'll be all! as you were, my lovelies ✨

It was no secret in Allison’s household that you simply did not disappoint Reginald Hargreeves. Unfortunately for his children, it was almost impossible not to disappoint that monocle-wearing monster. Luther seemed to have the best rep with his father and Diego appeared to be building up a thicker skin around their dad, but Allison, at twelve years old, was stuck between wanting to please her dad by doing her best and learn to do her best for herself and no one else. There was always that lingering fear, though, that Reginald would burst into her room with another roaring lecture, shouting about something that she had disappointed him with.

Allison liked to believe she was strong, but she showed it in was that she shouldn’t have at that age. She could have been miserable with the early stages of the flu, but she would power through training for her pride and her father’s. She never would have imagined that she’d do something similar with a fractured bone.

Her father had trained her well in hand-to-hand combat, so she approached every fight in every mission with confidence. This particular criminal, though, had a grip on her arm and twisted it in such a way that, when Allison felt the jab of pain, she knew it was broken. That pain didn’t go away, either, not even when the crooks were being led away from the museum in handcuffs. Still, she would have rather eaten a jar of leeches than gone to her father for help.

Days passed, though, and the pain didn’t ease up. In fact, it got worse and her arm only swelled up, providing visible proof that something was wrong. She couldn’t always hide it from mom and dad and eventually the broken forearm was put into a hard, white cast. Her father had shouted awful things at her. How dare she hide this from him and how dare she let it happen in the first place! Allison stood her ground, taking the tongue-lashing as best she could with her lower lip quivering, but no tears pouring out. When he was done, she stoically marched up to her room and burst into tears, the sounds of her sobbing echoing through the halls.

[ It had been a while since Eddie had been around.  It wasn't really intentional, exactly, but time passed and things got more and more Complicated.  The Umbrella kids got more Heroic even as they started to splinter, and Eddie mostly just stayed the same.  Carved his own way, tried to figure things out on his own, but his particular flavor of Weird wasn't exactly benign.  Venom wanted to eat and destroy, no matter how hard he tried to reign it in, and over time they found middle ground, for better or worse.

That, and his chosen career, put him at odds with Peter, because Eddie wasn't allowed to keep nice things.  After it came to a head, Eddie opted for a change of scenery; not great for public relations when you end up catching the wrong guy.  But it's gotta be better now, right?  Must have blown over, and Venom was getting Nostalgic.  He'd been on friendly terms with at least some of the Umbrella kids once, maybe there was something of it left.

They went on a patrol once they got there, Eddie because he wanted to see what had changed, Venom because...well.  It was hungry.  Like always.  But Venom stayed inside, at least for the moment, kept to a nagging voice in the back of his head.

Granted, an incredibly annoying voice in the back of his head, but still. ]

HUNGRYYYYYY.

We just got here, V.  I'll get you something later, just enjoy being back right now, okay?


ASSHOLE.  WE ARE HUNGRY.

In a minute.

[ For now, he lingers around the Academy.  Waiting for what, he doesn't really know.  Curiosity, maybe? ]

It was their first birthday since averting the apocalypse, and as far as Klaus was concerned, that meant it was time to celebrate.

Granted, there were more reasons than just that, they were alive -all of them- and they were together, and they had saved the fucking world, and he was thankful once again that Five's brilliant, stupid, all-or-nothing plan had actually worked.

Of course, actually planning a party without his siblings finding out about it was going to be tricky, but he'd enlisted Mom's help -thankful again that whatever Five had done had landed them on the morning of their father's funeral all those months ago- because there was no way he could have done this alone.

Each of the siblings staying at the house -including Klaus, as not to raise suspicions- would wake up to a small carton on their doorknob, containing a single cupcake topped with a chocolate domino mask stamped with their number, along with a heavy cotton-paper envelope with their name written on it in Grace's immaculate handwriting, which contained a single printed sheet:
Magical Birthday Masquerade
Raid your closet, raid a sibling's closet, raid the attic!
Do whatever you need to do to put together your Very Most Magical outfit.
It's time we had a party!
Costumes mandatory. Bring a +1 if you have one.
Refreshments provided.
Grand ballroom, 7pm tonight.
Also included was a map to the ballroom, just in case none of them had ever been there, because Klaus couldn't remember having been there, and Grace had had to show him where it was.

( Party tiiiiime! )

[It's another free-for-all, thread about finding a costume, thread at the party, thread about not going to the party bc you're Diego A Loner, Dottie, A Rebel. Whatever y'all, figure we all needed a good-time, low-feels post, enjoy!]

It's two AM in the Academy. Most people are sleeping, the house is relatively quiet. It's pretty peaceful for a house full of Superheroes. They saved the world, they stepped backwards in time, they saved Ben. All was well and fine and dandy until about two-oh-one when every single radio in the house turns on and dials turn to stations full of white noise and static.

And, no. You can't turn them off, because whoever wants to be heard is going to be very stubborn about it. Oh, sure. Unplug it from the walls, try to turn the volume down. Nothing will work. Someone wants attention and they sound very, very terrified.

"...B--" Whoever is speaking sounds young, but the words aren't clear. The static covers them, followed by something that sounds like growling and animalistic screaming, followed by the panicked voice of a child.

"BEN?! BEN!" More static. More monster sounds and the sound of running as the voice moves from room to room, lights in the house flickering as if showing the path this person is taking to get from spot to spot.

Finally, the flickering leads to the foyer, the chandelier lights flashing on and off aggressively as the voice is heard once more.

"BEN! WHERE ARE YOU?!"

And then, it ends. Simple as that, right?

Most likely no.

Most definitely no. Don't worry. The flickering lights and strange radio activity will start again, eventually including a television that'll have flashes of a small girl with a shaved head running through somewhere that looks like the Academy, but dilapidated, rotten, foggy and full of probably some of the most terrifying creature sounds ever.


[ ooc: this is a reaction post! I won't be tagging anyone with Elle until some manner of rescue begins. meet ben's buddy from the dimension he's been in these last few years. she may or may not need some big damn heroes to do a big damn rescue! work it out how it'll happen! let's add another broken child to the fam, hmm? ]

I need you to take me to the vet.

[ Guess who fed a stray and ended adopting the puppy. As much as it annoys him to ask, he needs the assistance of an adult looking person to convince the vets to vaccinate the poor dog. ]