were every hargreeves siblings lonely and lone? Were they all incapable of making friends truly?did they had any choice in the matter after they left the hargreeves mansion at 18,19?
Were the hargreeves lonely? Were they really incapable of making friends? Did they have any choice in the matter after they left the academy?
How I’m understanding this question is basically: Was the dominance and loneliness forced upon them growing up still chaining them down after they left?
The short answer? Yes.
I’m a behavior therapist, and part of my work is looking at how individuals have been conditioned to behave in certain ways. Functional behavior and nonfunctional behavior all stem from consequences. If the consequences of a behavior increase the likelihood of you doing it again, your behavior has been reinforced. If the consequences decrease the likelihood of you doing it again, your behavior has been punished. Reginald Hargreeves uses these principles of behavior to essentially control his children.
Just to give an example of how this works: say you ask politely for a cookie and Mom gives you a cookie—you’ve now learned that asking politely gets you a cookie and are more likely to ask that way again. It can also go the other way where if you ask for a cookie by screaming and yelling, you don’t get a cookie. You are now less likely to scream and yell. Sound familiar?
But now think about this:
Say you ask Dad for a hug and he ignores you. Eventually you stop asking. Say you follow all his instructions and he praises you. You keep following his instructions.
Say you ask Dad if you can go to the mall. He tells you no. Eventually you stop asking. Say you follow all his instructions and he praises you. You keep following his instructions.
Say you can’t do what Dad wants you to do so he locks you up and hurts you. You don’t want to suffer but you also can’t follow his instructions, so you do what you can to make it hurt less. He only tells you he’s disappointed but at least he can’t hurt you anymore.
Say you work really hard and outperform everyone else, and Dad praises you. He praises you for taking risks to be better. So you take more and more risks. Except one day he tells you to stop—that you can’t do it. The only problem with this is that experience has told you otherwise. You’ve been reinforced in the past for taking risks, so you take another. And another.
Say Dad tells you you’re nothing. You’re ordinary. You try to prove him wrong by doing well in other things, but instead of praising you, he ignores you or uses you as an example of what not to be. So you stop trying.
The only reinforced behavior the Hargreeves had was following whatever Dad said. (Aside from Five’s case due to reasons 2 paragraphs ago). They couldn’t rely on each other because they were always competing against one another for Dad’s approval.
For more about the Hargreeves’ hierarchy, check out this entry which dives even deeper! https://www.tumblr.com/atalana/183592717183/five-and-the-effects-of-reginald-hargreeves?source=share
So, yes. They were lonely. And while they could make their own decisions after saying Bye, Felicia to dear old dad, their behavior had already been conditioned into living a certain way. For the numbers at the top, they had to keep doing and being the best. For the numbers on the bottom, they were already a disappointment so what was the point? (Unless, again, you're Number Five and just keep pushing to become better)
And while most behavior is conditioned, it can also be conditioned to change (literally my job) so they could all learn to not be so harmfully dependent and learn to believe in themselves had they positive role models in their lives. But they didn’t. From what I can tell, it seems like Diego is the only one who made any friends, but none of them were deep relationships. Him and Patch didn’t last, but maybe they eventually could have had he found more reasons to live than taking out bad guys. And even though Allison married and had a child, she still couldn’t find herself living without relying on her power, her need to control things. She was trying to rise to the top by any means necessary, but it wasn’t fulfilling which she later realized.
One of my favorite things about season 2 is that the siblings all getting sent in different times helps them to learn to rely on others and maybe heal a little. Although unfortunately Five just went from one Apocalypse to the other so he basically never heals. It’s fine. (It’s not and I’m still upset about that storyline they call season 4).
But anyway. Changing behavior that has a long history of consistent conditioning is challenging and takes time. We see that throughout their stories and their laughable inability to communicate. But hopefully in some universe somewhere, they are learning to be happy. Thanks for the great questions!
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Nubia & the Amazons #6 - "Trial of the Amazons II" (2022)
written by Stephaie Williams & Vita Ayala
art by Alitha Martinez, Mark Morales, & Romulo Fajardo, Jr.
exandria does exist in the same multiverse as canon faerun, it has since the end of campaign one when arkhan jumped planes to escape, without getting into too many spoilers bc i don't know if you've watched c1, the hand of vecna is an artefact in some official dnd books, because of critical role. but yes, artagan's confirmation of it means you could easily make a taz crossover!
That’s...actually a very good point. I’ve kinda blocked the knowledge that the Arkhan the cruel from Critical Role is the same Arkhan the cruel with the Hand of Vecna in Faerun because it also brings with it the knowledge that he’s (if not The BBEG) one of the Big NPC’s in Descent into Avernus and my friend is currently DMing DiA and I don’t want to bring that meta knowledge to the table.
atalana replied to your post “So apparently it’s official that the final season of the show is going...”
hey op i can do you one better where birthdays are concerned - keith and i are the same age to the day and with the authority granted to me by the fact that that makes us basically the same person i hereby make aro/ace keith canon no takebacks
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Okay, for the main two! (check the captions for lance’s comments)
Here’s where we basically mash the two main characters together and do a trait switcharound, but it works best for their canon personalities.
Keith takes the place of Red as the game’s protagonist, because red, and also swords, but her pre-story role is taken by Lance, who is really far better suited to any kind of performing.
Lance (Community, Comedy) is a well respected performer and comedian, whose work tends towards the political, but his ultimate goal will always be other people’s enjoyment
Keith is not originally from Cloudbank, and therefore is not in the system at all, and has no intention of letting himself be (he checks the OVC terminals through Lance’s account)
Lance was the Camerata’s original target, though after extensive research (and spying) of the pair, both of them became high priority targets - Lance, for his voice and influence, and Keith, as someone who was likely to get in their way.
As such, they went after Keith first, a surprise attack after one of Lance’s shows, but Lance noticed the attempt just in time and pushed Keith away, falling into the path of the Transistor himself.
An approximate guide to the length of LOSS in stacked books, because why not
(and that’s just the main fic not including troll heroes or irons in the fire)
The A5 PoA for reference, because this book stack is bigger in person (and still falls about 6k short of the current length)
but seriously how do you write so much like woah 😍
i don’t even know how it came to this… ;-; or else JK Rowling needs to step up her game. it’s not that i write a lot, it’s that everyone else doesn’t write enough!
