Like everyone I really hated the Five x Lila storyline and the butchered potential of their almost-sibling relationship development.
But one thing that really ticked me, and that I haven't really read about yet, is: that timeskip montage looks like 3 weeks, maybe 2 months at best, not SIX FUCKING YEARS. In six years, people visibly age, especially under duress, if, for example, the only thing they can eat is rats?? (I'm not even talking about how they managed to keep roughly the same clothes and haircuts for six years without any explanation, or how they miraculously cleaned up before going back to Diego and Lila's precisely at the right point in time...) In six years alone with another person, you would probably struggle keeping your sanity, and the end result for each of them would probably look something like early stages of Apocalypse S1 Five. In six years alone with another person, even with prior attraction (which would already be ooc for both of them but whatever let's just grant them that for the sake of the argument), you would end up HATING each other all the way through your codependent relationship. I could see them having sex after six months (still following those creepy-ass ooc assumptions), but I could certainly NOT see them kissing softly and romantically wine-dining after SIX YEARS (the time those goddamn showrunners told us it took for passion to die down in a perfect marriage?? How about helltrap subway then??)
So after that really long preamble, here are my headcanons for what that subway section should really have looked like:
No Five x Lila, obviously
They bicker all the time; this escalates into outright fights. At some point, Lila storms off somewhere and they lose each other for five months.
When they realise they're not going home anytime soon, Five finds a timeline with a Dolores (other than the original one) and steals her away, because he's going to need her to cope through this. (Of course, he needs to apologize to her for being gone this long.)
At first, Lila thinks that Five is nuts for talking to Dolores, but in a matter of days she understands the urge and Dolores becomes her best friend. Five and Lila fight over Dolores's approval all. the. time.
Lila collects little trinkets to bring home to Grace and the twins (like the plushies in New Grumpson). After two years the gift bag has got way too big and Five helps her sort out the ones she really wants to keep; she bawls her eyes out and they arrange the throwaway gifts neatly on a bench, just in case they can come back and get them.
They find some really weird and fun timelines. Don't care what, they just do. Lila almost gets killed trying to bring home a souvenir.
Five and Lila find Max's Delicatessen together. By the way, there's a few Lilas there, ones that also met Fives. Lila can vent about her relationship trouble Diego with another Lila who has also married a Diego. But the other Diego is dead, and Lila realizes just how much she wants to get home before that happens.
This is a bit irrelevant, but that Five deli paradox psychosis plothole is explained by a random artefact created by Commission Five (like in his room in S3 I think?).
Five and Lila wait a short while in the deli to make a plan about the apocalypse. Another Five arrives, finds out about the marigold, and says out loud that the solution would be to erase all Hargreeves siblings from existence. A few seconds of silence, and then all the other Fives slaughter him because what kind of Five would to this to their family???? This is also one of the purposes of the deli, by the way. To make sure no Five comes out of the subway with delirious, dangerous ideas about harming their siblings.
Five and Lila realise that if Viktor can take away the marigold from people like Harlan, then he can take it away from his siblings. And what about Viktor himself? Well, Lila can mimic his powers and they can take away each other's marigold at the same time, and lose their powers just as they're done. Darn, why didn't they think of this sooner?
Lila tries to relook Five. After four or five years, he gives in, sees the end result and immediately finds a timeline with a suit to steal so as to fix this freakish mistake. He wears a hat for a while to try and hide his undercut hair.
Lila sings a lot. Five lets her, and just mumbles about her lousy tastes in music to Dolores.
Lila adopts a monstrous pet (three-headed cat? Giant bee?) for a few stops, and it mysteriously disappears at some point. Major fight ensues. Maybe this is why she leaves for a while.
In another timeline, they briefly meet a version of Diego that's not dead yet. He tries to kill them, Lila tells him that he's a great dad, he's weirded out and runs away.
Five picks up littered newspaper to see if there's anything interesting. He becomes a crossword addict. He moves to a new special interest puzzle game every few months.
After a fight, Five's big making-up strategy is to sit down next to Lila and start talking shit about the Handler. It kinda works.
I'm gonna stop here, this is already way too long. Please share your own headcanons if you have any!
i think they're funny
hey its me your immune system. looks like we caught somethin here. try sneezing real fast see if that gets rid of it. yeah no dice, huh... alright lemme try filling your lungs with fluid. no yeah i do it all the time dont worry works like a charm. hmmm... still no good... alright well just hold tight here for a minute maybe it just needs time to start working. in the mean time ill go fire up the ol' neuron cooker n see if that helps
SAY NICE THINGS TO PPL
Me making a fun post to market my business on meta apps: this is so hard everyone's gonna love this
Me after the post flops: oh I forgot THIS is the bad place
Took a "social media break" but IM BACK BABY AND I FEEL not all that much better
Shout out to all the Black ppl that can no longer participate directly in the fandom they love because of the stresses of racism 👍🏾 you contain multitudes of value and I'm sorry that the color of your skin and the power of your voice makes people not want to acknowledge that.
i wish i could pause life and lay in bed for 3 months and just catch my fucking breath
If there's one thing about me I know for sure, it's that I will always jump at the opportunity to make a schrodingers cat joke
I have no organization or theme this is a graveyard of doomscrolling and my inner thoughts 🫶 Jac she/they 24
473 posts