#legit the first time pogo came on screen i was like 'hmm. don't like that. don't trust him.'

[in-tua-deep]

First time anon wanted to say I love all of your tua au’s. They are absolutely fantastic and I am soft for all of them. However I did amuse myself with the barking mad au, noticed you never write about Pogo in your au’s (do you not like him btw? No pressure on it just curious), but I just like the thought of him meeting/talking to partially feral!Five and he can’t quite figure out which language (animal or english) is more appropriate to say ‘master five what the ever living F****?!’ in.

!! hello first time anon! thank u for messaging

asdfHJGFSDG you caught me,, i don’t like Pogo and don’t think he should have a place in the children’s lives so I never write him into any of my aus because I lowkey want him to disappear

mainly because Pogo was complicit in their abuse to the point where even after Reginald was dead he was still keeping secrets - like he was complicit in drugging a child almost her entire life and emotionally abusing her by backing up the “You’re ordinary” narrative Reginald built up

and even after his death, Pogo stood up and said their dad left behind a complicated memory but then proceeded to compliment the man because presumably Pogo owed so much to him etc. etc. 

Grace I can excuse, because she’s a robot. She functionally had no free will since Reginald was fully capable of tinkering with her programming and forcing her to obey and keep quiet, but Pogo was an adult sentient being capable of free will and he still looked the other way. 

Yeah okay you could say maybe he did it because he was afraid that if he turned against Reginald, he wouldn’t have anywhere to go. You could say he didn’t know how to help beyond attempting to be there for the kids and turning a blind eye to some of their shenanigans (like going out to Griddy’s). BUT. After Reginald’s death he continued to keep the kids in the dark about their dad’s plan, withheld information, and made no move to correct anything. Like i’m pretty sure if he told Klaus “the box contained your father’s journal recording your sister’s power, no not allison, actually your dad drugged her all her life and I’d like to set the record straight on her being ‘ordinary’” klaus would have tried a hell of a lot harder to get it back

Grace, after Reginald’s death, was glitched out of her mind tbh but once fixed she made it clear that she did not support Reginald. After all, telling ur son that you’d like to go out when you were never permitted and then telling him that his dad isn’t around anymore to give orders is a pretty cool moment if I do say so myself

and in the day that wasn’t, Grace was going to tell all the secrets she’d been forced to keep over the years in the park as well. She tried to put it right pretty much as soon as she was capable

Pogo didn’t. He purposefully made efforts to continue Reginald’s plan, up to and including attempting to frame Grace for Reginald’s suicide, not telling Vanya about her powers, not telling anyone about that whole skeezy business, fixing Grace but then reminding her to keep secrets (which she rejects), and just generally. continued supporting a man we know to be an abusive piece of shit idk

so yEAH I don’t like Pogo and consider him to be an accomplice to Reginald’s abuse where I don’t hold Grace accountable because there’s free will involved and while he might have advocated for the children, I doubt he ever pressed if Reginald put his foot down which is why i never include him in anything lmao

as far as i’m concerned in all my aus he’s off chilling at one of Reggie’s other properties or something because Vanya doesn’t want him around (and for good reason) so he can live his days in retirement,,, anywhere else

as for the barking mad au, getting back to ur original ask, I think Pogo is?? Too human-ized? I doubt he’s been a proper chimpanzee for many years, a minimum of like. actually when was he introduced to the household? Was it before the kids were there? Average lifespan of a chimp is what, forty years? And he looked older with his cane and stuff so. Probably? 

But regardless I doubt he can understand anything Five is ‘saying’ with body language beyond what humans can read, mainly because dogs/cats and chimps are different (though Five also knows some sick birdcalls and can mimic alarm calls and ‘hello!’ and other cool thing) and feral!Five lived with only cats and dogs during the apocalypse. It’s a little like dumping a dog in with a colony of chimps - confusion on all sides rip so while Pogo probably would be like “Master Five what the Fuck” it’s more because Five is behaving like,, well,, an animal. Which all of the siblings are also thinking tbh

dog people or cat people would probably be able to pick up things here and there though. like that specific meow cats do when they Hunger, or the wiggling that says ‘happy and probably overstimulated’, and growls/hisses/showing teeth should be self explanatory tbh but like, there’s other things. Like quietly mirroring to hang out, slow blinks as affection, the way dogs will playfully run up and then run away in an almost crab scuttle to see if you’ll follow to play (with bonus jumping powers!), the either cowering down with metaphorical tail between legs or PUFFING UP to be the BIGGEST when threatened, whines that mean ‘hurry up!! come on!’ when someone is going too slow, the running ahead and running back to check and running ahead again

like look i have a pretty quiet dog all things considered, and i had an even quieter dog before they. She only really barks when people come up to the door tbh, but I Know People who own dogs like huskies who are the most vocal little shits in existence and who WILL scream when inconvenienced or nervous

(my sister, a vet student interning at a vets, has regaled me with tales of huskies brought to the clinic who just screamed like they were being murdered the entire time despite them not even being examined or anything. they were literally just chilling in the kennel.)

Feral!Five is actually more vocal than ur regularly scheduled Five but everyone wishes he Wasn’t (he’s also way less standoffish and very likely to just full body rub himself against his siblings or drape himself across them tbh bc like. if they wanted him to quit all they’d have to do is give a warning snap or growl or grumble and they don’t sO)

BUT HEY if u want to write something for the au then feel free to include Pogo and your idea because it is very cute!! I just don’t like Pogo and refuse to include him in things lmao