#theglowqueen

Sweetie, post-swiss HQ: 

--Afterward, gabe is uber, uber protective of Sweetie and I argued that he’d flip on even widowmaker if they talked shit on his raggedy lil girl, and kara went on to say that “The reason people die after seeing the Raggedy Reaper is because they laugh at her and Reaper is just like Y’all dune fucked up my guys”, like they don’t take him seriously at first with this itty-bitty Raggedy Reaper following it around--until someone hears him call her Sweetie, and they say, “I thought ‘Raggedy Reaper’ was bad” and he doesn’t get much farther than that before they all start taking the mercenary seriously. 

--Sweetie wants a gun so she can fit gabe’s new #aesthetic even more, but gabe’s like “no that’s okay” until she is sad she’s ruining his #aesthetic, so he goes to his gun supplier and is like “Hey, you know mimikkyu? Could you make one of my guns, but so she can’t hurt herself? I keep telling her no, but you know how they are.” Cue confused but willing supplier. 

--heard on the field: “That pokemon has a gun!” “Relax, she’s not gonna hurt anyone with it.” noticeably absent: explanation that the gun is incapable of firing.... ever 

Ms. Beak, post-swiss HQ: 

--Ms. Beak is more of a reconnaissance agent than a fighter, because she’s a really common pokemon and therefore blends in real easily. we argued that she’d be trained to retreat whenever a situation went FUBAR, so that’s why she wasn’t in the explosion at all 

--She was a giant, mournful pest in the aftermath until Gabe found her and she “disappeared” while overwatch fell apart. 

--sadly, she’s also the reason they figure out gabe’s identity so quickly. cloaked man + custom Mimikkyu? not easy to identify. a giant pidgeot, combat-ish-trained and with familiar markings? much, much easier. Ana, in their first confrontation where Ms. Beak is there, is like, “waaaaait a minute” 

--”Throws the whole mission on its head because she’s pulled out snacks for the enemy’s Pidgeot. 

*deep voice from a distance* 

‘Ms. Beak, no!’ 

‘I know it’s you Gabriel!’ 

‘shit’”  

Post-discovering Gabe’s identity: 

--in the past, gabe’s pokemon have always loved ana. she has the best snacks! ( “Ana has best pokebeans?? how turn down Gabe. How.”) and she’s so nice! good pets, good compliments--she even compliments Sweetie on her new outfit that gabe made for her, so that’s like. mucho bonus points. gabe’s a little annoyed that they go running to her right away, a little wary, but ana wouldn’t use them against him-- “she may have done some sketch stuff in her day, but she finds it wrong to use a pokemon’s trust like that” 

--Jesse, too, was the weird kid that gabe liked, so they’re cool with him too. “Sweetie goes running up to him because she’s like, “Gotta show Jesse my gun. He likes guns” and Gabe is like yeah go for it. It’s a terrifying 5 minutes for Jesse before he recognizes Sweetie”. he shows her his own gun in response and she’s v v excited, and gabe’s relieved because that’s still his boy, underneath the gruffness and exhaustion 

^^after that, jesse sort of ‘debriefs’ with ana like, “What was that?? is gabe back what’s going on” and she basically goes, “you’ve never seen that pidgeot or mimikyu in your life. understood?” so it’s like their lil secret 

--Sweetie does /not/ like 76. at all. rumor has it that he thinks mimikkyu’s aren’t impressive and they’re just knock off pikachus and she doesn’t forget that sort of nonsense. would gouge out his eyes given the chance, and since those are normally covered, she tends to go for the throat when they have missions against him 

Ana + reaper + his pokemon: 

--She won’t use his pokemon against him, but she thinks that they’re a tool to use to get gabe back. part of her wants gabe, her best friend back, and that’s a good portion of her motivation. but the other, agent-side of her recognizes that overwatch would do more than survive if they could get commander reyes back. 

--so that’s part of the reason she keeps extra poke-snacks in her kit, from then on, and she’s the one who starts using Ms. Beak to get messages to gabe--sends over his favorite type of tea, one time, and it’s a sentimental move that does move gabe

--”’If we’re good to Miss Beak, he’ll remember that when talon does something awful’ --Ana”  her hoping that they can sway gabe back to their side, but understanding it’s contingent on circumstances rather than any type of emotional moves. but stacking the emotional deck in their favor? not a bad idea, in her opinion

--it’s a very calculated approach

--these interactions are easier for ana, almost, because she has that calculating side, though it hurts when sweetie comes bounding across the field with a flask of her favorite kind of rum and she’s reminded of them as stupid kids--Ana, gabe, and jack, who thought they were the world. 

-- (”She doesn’t miss commander reyes, she truly misses gabe,”) 

Jesse + reaper + reaper’s pokemon: 

--jesse sends sweetie over with a note and gabe’s blackwatch beanie after ana starts sending messages. it’s hard for gabe, because it makes him want to start caring about them again and he knows that can only end badly. at the same time, it makes his pokemon happy to see the two, soe he doesn’t want to stop them from visiting 

--gabe sends ms. beak over to jesse’s in return and has her trash his liquor cabinet while depositing a (Really nasty, actually) note that basically says, “stop drinking you’ll get sloppy and lazy here’s a help hotline get help u fuckin loser” . and while it’s p nasty jesse’s like, “he still cares!!” 

--which is really rough for jesse, because like. one minute they’re talking through his pokemon, and the next gabe’s completely ignoring him on the battlefield. not even looking his way, brushing him off, dismissing him.

--every response gabe gives him gives him hope, but every time he’s ignored crushes him all over again. 

--(Gabe doesn’t want to fight him, is the problem. doesn’t want to hurt the man he loved as a son, and he definitely doesn’t want overwatch to know they’re in contact. in old overwatch, it’d be a death sentence to talk to the enemy without attempting to bring them in. he has no reason to believe that new overwatch is any different, is the thing. they’ll hurt him, he thinks, a little manically, and so he ignores jesse) 

--(He thinks that new overwatch might even be worse, because they have so many enemies and won’t stand for any leaks. it’d be a firing squad. he has no idea that they don’t have any “warhawks” outside of ana and jack, that it’s a small organization that can’t afford to lose anyone, really--he just knows what old overwatch was like. so he deliberately acts obtuse and ignores and ignores, despite the hurt he can almost feel radiating off of jesse) 

--jesse is not having a #GoodTime, basically 

jesse + dealing w/hurt from reaper’s ignoring of him + bastion: 

--”It gets bad enough that even though he and Ana decided to act like nothing was happening, Jesse wanted so bad to talk to someone about it. He knows that Ana obviously would be the best choice since she’s already in on it, but she’s so detached. He knows that they were good friends, but he also isn’t stupid enough to not see what she’s really doing. 

He wants to tell Genji. They were all Blackwatch together, but Genji has moved on with his life. He’s found peace, and Jesse doesn’t want to fuck that up. He wants to tell Angela. He knows how close she and Gabe were. It was like she and Jesse were siblings for fuck sake. But she’s also Jack’s girl. Gabe was not her only support. And judging by the way Sweetie reacts to Jack, he’s not sure how she’d react to Angie.

Somehow, he ends up with Bastion. Bastion, who for some reason has Miss Beak sitting on her head.” 

--jesse takes miss beak’s presence as a sign and info-dumps the fuck onto bastion, and bastion doesn’t really mind--she likes when they treat her like an equal/person, so while her communication methods are limited, she’s a good listener and she can be sympathetic and give him a pointy but nice hug when he gets upset. so jesse talks about gabe, about how it’s unfair because he’s always been gabe’s man, always been his right hand. and if gabe had gotten to him before the recall--well, he doesn’t know. bastion doesn’t fault him for admitting that

--bastion attempts to get across that jesse has much more support now with new-overwatch, that angela and genji love him, the younger agents think he’s great and look up to him, and winston in particular is so relieved that jesse is on their side with how skilled he is. unfortunately, her vocabulary isn’t the best with english even when she tries to type a message for him 

--Ms. Beak croons and grooms his hair through it, and when jesse starts to feel better and thanks both of the ladies kindly for being ears for awhile, she leaves and pecks the shit out of gabe when she gets back. she’s pissed for daaaaaaaays, will leave him deliberately on the field to go groom jesse, and gabe gets the hint 

--but. well. he doesn’t really change anything because what can he do? 

jesse + reaper + snail mail snapchat:  

--after this, gabe sends a letter to jesse asking about bastion and whether Ms Beak is safe with her or not. he gets a picture back of bastion covered in all kinds of bird pokemon. he also gets another one of jesse flipping him off, “but he doesn’t take it too harshly”  

--it takes like 3 back and forths before gabe sends a selfie (Ms. Beak covers most of him, but it’s more skin than anyone’s seen since he ‘returned’) and jesse has an “oh” moment. because he didn’t just go off after swiss hq. He was actually really fucked up. he's a little forgiving of his initial hurt b/c part of him was assuming gabe was hiding and pretending to be dead like Ana was, for weird ambiguous justice-moral reasons Jesse still doesn't really get, but gabe didn’t. the pic soothes the old hurt of "gabe?? You're still alive??" “Because something that [rough] would need recovery and if deadpool has taught us anything, it's hard to face loved ones after being remade” 

-- “Like seeing how Gabe was actually /fucked up/ really helps. Gabe didn't choose to leave him. His mom died, the gang left him, Genji left, and with the return of Reaper, he had been convinced that Gabe had left him too. But he gets it. He remembers having such a hard time facing everyone after he lost his arm. Gabe lost most everything. So it doesn't hurt as bad.” 

-- “Exactly yes that. Gabe didn't leave willingly, so he's more in the category that his mom is in I'd imagine. So he's able to think of him fondly and still love him without that justified betrayed-feeling that he's still working out w/genji and the other overwatch members that just. Left when everything went downhill” 

happier note: snail mail snapchat onto real snapchat! : 

-- “Jesse sends him a picture of Angela and Genji. Gabe sends him back a picture every time he makes Sweetie a new outfit. Jesse manages to send him a picture of Widowmaker who had fallen asleep in her hiding spot, propped up against her rifle. Gabe sends back a picture of Miss Beak dive bombing Jack. Jesse sends him a picture of him flipping off his fucked up liquor cabinet. Gabe sends him back a picture of himself flipping him off” 

--after ms. beak gets ticked and exhausted at being used like a post owl from harry potter, “Sweetie comes skipping over with the next message to Jesse's surprise and it's just a phone number. He saves it in his phone as Dad. They never message each other, but their Snapstreak is 50 days long. (Lena goes through his phone once and now thinks Jesse has a weird daddy thing going on but is too nervous to actually put it in his phone like that. So she changes it for him)”  

jesse + his pokemon: 

--jesse has 3 pokemon: a cubone named Kit, a growlithe named Cassidy, and an ampharos named Fluffy Spark. 

--jesse found kit shortly before he joined the deadlock gang ( Kit’s backstory, up to this point, was basically >> Kit: *falls into a trainer's carry-on luggage* *sneaks off the plane* *wanders into a car because she smelled food* *ate a pizza man's delivery and was chased out* *ended up on a train, like a nice one with a food cart and was assumed to be one of the passenger's ones* *somehow ends up near jesse* ) on the side of the road trying to eat a rock. she’s his bb. she’s also an alolan one, which he doesn’t know, so when she evolves boy howdy is that a hot adventure i’ll go over below 

--he gets cassidy when he joins the gang, and everyone wants him to evolve her right away (big, intimidating arcanine? much more useful for their needs than a smol pupper) but he keeps “losing” the fire stone they got him. he knows that cassidy isn’t ready and she doesn’t want to evolve yet, so he gets into some trouble and gets a reputation for being forgetful/for misplacing shit, but it’s all good. even at blackwatch, she doesn’t want to evolve, and gabe’s like “k whatever but i have extra fire stones if you need them” because he’s collected a lot over the years but never had to use any since none of his pokemon need them 

--Fluffy Spark was originally just Fluffy, and cassidy basically herded him into jesse’s arms right after they went to blackwatch and they’ve had him ever since.  (Gabe’s like “the fuck kid” and jesse’s like, “cassidy won’t let me put him back!” then when fluffy evolved, jesse was sorta like “Well, you’re not fluffy anymore, so. spark!” but fluffy won’t respond, so he tries to be sneaky and call him fluffy spark and transition to just spark, but. didn’t happen. 

cassidy + fluffy spark : 

--basically your typical teasing-sibling relationship. will destroy each other but only they are allowed to do so, anyone else will be destroyed MORE 

-- “People talk to Jesse like "Your Growlithe and Ampharos don't seem to like each other at all. Are you sure you should keep them together like that." Jesse looks over to see Fluffy Spark bopping Cassidy on the head and she nips at the ball on his tail. "Nah, they love each other!"”  

--cassidy doesn’t want to evolve yet (”Cassidy is best pupper?? 1 out of 1 pupper agree. Best pupper is me. Don't listen to Fluffy Spark. He is full of lies.” ) and fluffy spark’s like “okay cool but you won’t be bigger than me until you do. so.” and thwacks her in the head and nibbles because he can and cassidy gets all riled up 

-- “They're actually siblings. Cassidy steals Fluffy Spark's favorite pokebeans all the time and Fluffy Spark takes the treasured spot on Jesse's bed at night just so Cassidy can't “ 

--Ms Beak is the only one who really stops them when they get riled up together and are at each other’s throats. she likes to pretend she’s an old woman and make gabe carry her around, but jesse’s pokemon are to her what jesse is to gabe. 

-- Sweetie is a little intimidated by Fluffy Spark, just because he has Much Personality and Sweetie is shy, but overall they get along and Sweetie can roughhouse a little rougher with Fluffy Spark than she can with anyone else. And Cassidy likes to give Sweetie piggy back rides because she's one of the only Pokémon on base smaller than her

Kit: 

--so jesse has no idea that kit’s an alolan cubone. looks like a cubone, acts like a cubone, is a cubone! so when she starts to evolve, he’s like “oh cool” and then very quickly is like “WHY IS SHE ON FIRE” 

--we didn’t have a concrete timeline for when she would evolve, but if it was during blackwatch-era it’d go like this: jesse bursting into gabe’s office/room/whatever with a weird-looking marowak yelling, “IS THIS SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN”  while kit’s just cuddling into his chest and basically being like “you’re so weird, human, it nap time because evolving is hard work.” (if it was post-recall, it’d be the same but it’d be a snapchat video instead of in-person, and gabe would respond a few hours later with a picture of a map of alola, acting like he knew right off the bat [he didn’t, he had to look it up and do some digging b/c no one really goes to alola or knows much about it]) 

--gabe’s hella confused how jesse got an alolan cubone (”did you get her on the black market or something?” “no? i found her on the side of the road?? trying to eat a rock??” "why was she trying to eat a rock" "I don't know! She was a baby! I think. Regardless, she was hungry. Oh no. Do you think she'll want to eat fire things now? What do you eat now baby??" Kit, true to form, just nibbles on Jesse's pants pocket where she knows he keeps snacks, but he's a little too freaked out to get the obvious message. "She's eating my pants Gabe!" "Is there something in your pocket?" "Some Pokebeans but I don't know what that has to do with- oh.")  

--in conclusion: Kit: happily nomming on pokebeans Jesse: still freaking out, would like to know what happened to his ground type Pokémon Gabe: long suffering, a tired dad

--Miss Beak thinks Kit's kinda weird and sometimes has to peck her hand so she doesn't eat things that aren't to be eaten, but at least she doesn't cause much trouble and lets Miss Beak sleep when she wants to. 

--Sweetie and Kit are closer, because Sweetie never really acts like the age she is, like she's not that much younger than Miss Beak but she's more in the maturity range of Kit. They like to hold hands (or in Kit's case, hold one of Sweetie's tendrils that act as hands) and they chatter to each other, are much more "talkative" than the other Pokémon.