#[ & ] talia hopton.

[nuptia]

SUBJECT  LINE  ONE   :       on  the  importance  of  talia  hopton  and  her  involvement  in  wren  jones’  life       [       featuring  an  exploration  of  young  female  friendships,     growing  up  with  distinct  feelings  of  inadequacy,     and  the  burden  of  trying  to  save  a  girl  not  meant  to  be  saved       ---       as  loving  expressed  via  a  headcanon  dump       ].

ACT  ONE   :       your  lives  begin  in  parallel. 

she is the fourth child of d - lister superheroes (heroes are tiered based on their powers + given a commission that roughly amounts to your tier added to how many people you’ve saved that year --- d is the second lowest rank). her parents swam at the higher end of working class, with each child an attempt to make something SPECTACULAR. talia is the only one of her siblings to have powers, which is why it comes as such a disappointment that her powers are so weak.

PERSONALITY:

while wren is a blast of quick humour and soft smiles, talia is quiet. her classmates would describe her as mousy, if they were to describe her at all. she blended happily into the background, all tender and raw at being seen, while wren drew her out and showed her off. she didn’t do so well in school, mostly because her father’s strict training meant she couldn’t devote herself to much else; however, she did like art class, especially when they were given cameras and allowed to take photos over the weekend. her bedroom was decorated with pictures of anything and everything. 

POWER ANALYSIS: 

talia can use her telekensis to draw objects towards her, as long as said objects are no more than feet away, and weigh no more than ten pounds. very handy for pulling the remote towards her, much less handy for stopping villains. 

THEORETICALLY, she knows she can draw together dust particles from the surrounding air and use it to slowly damange someone’s lungs, but she’s never tried this --- she did used to make small balls of swimming dust to amuse wren, though. 

TRAINING:

utterly sure that his daughter’s powers would manifest into something stronger, her father made her keep up a pretty strict training regime from the ages four to sixteen. she is phsyically very fit and able from this, but her powers have not grown any stronger. 

she resents her father deeply for this, every inch of her life under demanding control from him; her sleep schedule was tightly monitered, her meals were kept in constant check, and her free time was limited to an hour each day (which she often used to sneak out and chill with wren).

ANXIETIES: 

and so god loved all his children equally, but my father is no god --- he is a man split with dreams bigger than me, unable to see that i’m but a child. 

HARM:

at sixteen, talia goes through a bit of a breakdown. she’s at a party with wren, her first high school party, and she’s downing shots like she won’t ever have this chance again --- she might not, after all. wren drives her home to their dingy little place, and talia stumbles inside to find her father waiting for her. 

the two argue loudly, brutally, with talia bursting into tears; her little sister, mallory hopton, wanders downstairs in the midst of this. brimming with anger, talia goes to attack her father, and mallory wanders into the crossfire. the fourteen year old is pushed about ten feet back at an intense force, causing her to hit her head and pass out for a few seconds.

there’s no lasting damage to mallory --- and later, mall will crawl into talia’s bed and holding her close, murmuring that it’s okay, it didn’t really hurt, it’s alright.

talia’s father doesn’t wake her the next morning for training.

ACT  TWO   :       wren  jones.

it’s easy to pretend their meeting was inveitable. they were both the useless children of great heroes, they were both searching for someone to look out for them, they were both desperate to be seen; the truth, however, is that they liked each other for far less interesting reasons --- wren was the first person to smile at talia when she entered the CHILDREN OF SUPES weekend group and the two fell together quickly after that. that’s all it was, really: one smile. 

any time the other is free, they’re together. wren and talia are joined at the hip, calling each other every night, talia’s one hour of free time devoted to her best friend. it’s a cliche sort of friendship: they wear friendship braclets that they promise they’ll never take off, they tell each other every secret, they share a diary between them.

A CONVERSATION, LATE NIGHT LIPS PRESSED INTO THE PHONE’S RECEIVER: 

wren [whispering loudly]: i met a boy. talia [a pause is felt, long and drawn out, as sticky as the soft bubblegum still staining her tongue]: oh? wren [quick to notice, embarrassed at her revelation]: you’ll like him. i swear you will. he’s so (...) he’s so nice. ---- and talia already knows she’ll hate him, because that sigh-touched voice was once meant just for her.

DO YOU LOVE WREN JONES?

the answer is simple: yes. but i’ve never been in love with wren --- it wasn’t ever like that (we did kiss once at new years, both nervous that no one else would want us --- i think we were always nervous about that). i wasn’t jealous because some great love of mine was being stolen away; it’s just that....wren was the first thing that was ever truly mine. and i was hers. and then, suddenly, very suddenly, it’s like we barely knew each other. how do you even prepare for that? HOW DO YOU EVEN PREPARE FOR ---

ENTER: ELIJAH.

elijah is everything that talia isn’t. he has an easy charm about him, he blends in well with everyone he meets, and he’s powerful. it radiates from him, this disgusting potential, and soon enough wren’s friendship necklace is replaced by one that elijah bought for her. 

it doesn’t hurt. or, talia never says that it hurts, which is basically the same thing. right? wren still loves her, she just --- doesn’t spend as much time with her, or pick up her calls. one night, wren leaves without even saying anything to talia, whisked right out of their small town. 

talia gets accepted into community college on a photography course. there’s pictures of wren in a scrapbook below her bed, but she doesn’t look at it anymore. 

LOVERS:

she has an easier time in college than she does high school. she falls in with a group of friends, big enough that she doesn’t feel destroyed if one or two of them leave her.

TODD MARWICK, DANIEL URIS, AND MARIA CALLAGHAN.

the last one is the only person who works out because, in her second year, she has a big fat ‘oh god i’m a lesbian aren’t i’ ephinany at a bathroom in a frat house after kissing maria. 

A PHONECALL:

wren [her voice is shaky, weak, the same broken tone it had the night she left]: can you -- can you hear me? it’s (...) wren, do you remember me? i never knew if he...he said that he made the people forget me, and that’s why....i wouldn’t call unless --- please. i can’t do this anymore, talia, please, please, if there’s any part of you that still knows who i am --- please.

WORKING IT OUT:

at 3am, you receive a strange voicemail from wren. it’s the first time she’s contacted you in three years. at 4am, you’re in the car with maria and you’re driving over the elijah’s huge fuck-off apartment building. 

maria waits outside in the car, but talia goes into the building -- bullshitting her way through the guards, kicking open elijah’s door with impressive force (all that training paid off, huh?). talia grabs an unresisting wren, tugging her free from the house. elijah tries to intercept with a quick word, but talia pushes a knife to his neck: try it. fucking try it. 

the two leave -- and, for a time, wren’s free (perhaps it’s important to note that talia still wears the necklace that wren bought for her, perhaps it’s important to note that wren cries softly into talia’s arms all night, perhaps it’s important to note that maria makes them both warm tea and strokes wren’s back --- this is love in its purest form).

the apartment is cramped, but they make it work. maria studies to be an engineer, talia finishes up her photography degree, and wren starts waitressing. 

ACT  THREE   :       the  aftermath  of  loving  a  lit  flame.

DOWNFALL:

maria and talia have a mutual, amicable break-up. maria moves away to california and talia throws herself into her work.

at twenty five, maria is arrested for a crime she absolutely did not commit, but the police and jury were apparently convinced she’d done it. maria is sentenced and wren is (...) all alone. 

as of right now, talia is still in prison.