#i have such intense brain rot about one of the worst fictional dads ever

[annoyinglandmagazine]

It’s kind of interesting to me that Bill, Barry and Klaus seemed to all undergo a dramatic change from being fairly lighthearted adventurers having the time of their lives and helping people to terrifyingly controlled killing machines over the same space of time even if it’s through different circumstances.

Klaus definitely seems to think that the Heterodyne Boys would never approve of what he’s doing and that they’d find another way if they were there. And they probably wouldn’t be immediately on board but I think what Klaus is forgetting is that Bill and Barry changed too.

He seems so shocked that Barry didn’t trust him enough to come to him and the thing is, while Barry was probably shown some fairly compelling evidence, the chances are that after everything he went through and the revelation that Lucrezia betrayed them he was in a headspace where he could be made to doubt anybody.

Now who does that sound like? Someone becoming paranoid as fuck of everyone around them due to general trauma plus trust issues caused by Lucrezia and the world in general that they thought they’d helped only for it to then turn back to tearing itself apart as soon as they’re gone.

The paranoia heightened exponentially by the need to protect the child that is the only good left in their life while being convinced (not entirely incorrectly) that everyone is out to take them from them and maybe they could afford to go about things differently if it was only their life at stake but they aren’t taking any risks with the child’s.

Klaus is so certain that he’s compromising on morals because someone has to and that because Bill and Barry were perfect heroes who’d never hurt anybody they didn’t absolutely have to if they were around they’d insist on a more gentle approach but this wasn’t Klaus’ approach the last time he saw them.

Klaus himself changed no matter how much he seems to have rationalised that this was always ‘his way’ but he seems unable to understand, based on his reaction to Adam and Lilith, that his friends aren’t the same people he left behind either, they’re mistrusting, they jump straight to conflict and they will do absolutely anything to protect Agatha the same way he’d do absolutely anything to protect Gil.

(I don’t think Adam and Lilith were in the wrong in any way, they were just operating on extremely incorrect crucial information and acting accordingly, exactly like Klaus is for the entirety comic! There is a very important parallel to be had there!)

I’m not entirely sure that Bill and Barry wouldn’t do the kind of things Klaus does if it was for Agatha’s safety (*cough* locket/overlay parallel *cough*) but to Klaus believing that would actually be worse.

He knows he’s effective but he doesn’t think he’s a good person and it would disrupt something very fundamental for him if he couldn’t say definitively that Bill and Barry were completely good in all the ways he isn’t.

To him Bill and Barry are the same optimistic young men he knew before everything went south who’d always look for a solution to spare as many lives as possible just like he can’t afford to, who’d obviously come to him if they were there because they look for the best in people just like he doesn’t know how to anymore.

And when Barry heard that Klaus was back I bet that he needed to believe that Klaus at least had stayed the same. Except he didn’t and Barry didn’t, none of them did.