who up thinking about delores and five because it’s me
posted about this song like a year ago (here) because i was up all night crying thinking about them and the day has come where i finally edited them to it. i ❤️ procrastination ! ! !
This is going to be a long yap about this crossover AU. And I mean a LONG yap, I'm explaining pretty much everything: character changes, how I've combined the lore, the basic timeline, everything.
There are spoilers for Umbrella Academy and Poppy Playtime (up to and including) Chapter Five.
The post will be split up with titles so you can jump around.
Warning! This is a DARK AU. Poppy Playtime's lore is FUCKED. I'm not toning it down by that much.
TW: Body horror, Graphic violence, Child harm/Child Endangerment, Abuse, Manipulation, Brainwashing/Hypnotism/Psychological Horror, Medical Experimentation/Unethical Science, Cannibalism, Murder, Death, and other FUCKED up topics.
Basic Terms
These are things you'll need to know to understand the story. I'm going to explain them simply for those who are unfamiliar with Poppy Playtime. There will also be links to the wiki pages for those who wish to read more.
Bigger Bodies - The Main experiments of Playtime Co. (Taken from the Wiki) "The Bigger Bodies Initiative was the driving force of Playtime Co.'s human experiments. Entailing illegal and unethical experimentation on humans, mainly orphan children, the bodies of these subjects would be transformed into the living organisms modeled after the toys produced by Playtime Co."
After being transformed, most, if not all, of these experiments were then hypnotized/brainwashed/conditioned into believing they were always toys. Some went through so much of this conditioning that they behave more like animals than humans.
The toys were heavily experimented on and forced to work at the factory; if they didn't obey, they were sent for more conditioning .
Playtime Co Employees - Not really a term to know, but I would recommend skimming through a few pages so you know who is who, or at least have it pulled up if you need reminding.
The Experiments - Same thing. List of all the known Experiments.
Playcare - The on-site orphanage within Playtime Co. Founded by Elliot Ludwig, is where most of the children were raised and kept before getting adopted or, more often than not, turned into toys.
Game Station - A playpen-like area where the orphans were tested in different challenges to test to compatabilty with the Bigger Bodies experiments.
For the timeline(s) themselves, I will write that down and summarize each point for those who don't know. But there are videos online that you can Google for the information if you don't wanna read.
Combined Lore
First, there are going to be date inconsistencies - I am using timeline, timeline jumps/changes, and time travel logic regarding those. I will try my best to explain!
One of my headcanons is that the Commission had businesses and organizations all over the timeline that funded their main headquarters and all the technology and science. The mentioned Soybean Society (the fake name the Commission board used to meet in Season 2) is an example of one.
Playtime Co. was still founded by Elliot Ludwig, but after he passed, his successor, an undercover Commission agent named Leith Pierre, took over and turned the business into a front for some of the Commission's darker experiments.
The Bigger Bodies in this AU were made to be weapons for the Commission, to eventually replace many of the human assassins. The idea was that the living creatures could 'hide in plain sight', pretending to be toys, animatronics, and mascots while secretly being killing machines.
After all, who would believe you if you said an 18-foot-tall blue sour-patch looking monster attacked you and your family for a wrong choice you didn't know you made?
More information will be put under 'Timeline' cause I don't wanna flood this section with ONLY Poppy Playtime lore.
Character Changes
There are three main character changes to this lore. Ollie/Prototype, Leith Pierre, and obviously, Dolores.
Ollie/Oliver: He does still become an experiment, but he is NOT the Prototype. I do have a role for him; nothing about his human identity has changed. Still an experiment, just not 1006.
Leith Pierre: A member of the Commission's board of directors who got slaughted by Five in Season 2 of Umbrella Academy. He starts off as an undercover agent and then gets promoted once he takes control of Playtime Co.
Dolores
Here is our main star. Dolores takes on the role of the Prototype in this crossover. This is where some things get a bit more complicated.
For dates on his 'creation', those stay the same, and I am chalking up inconsistencies to time travel. He still goes through the apocalypse and the first season of the show with Five. When Five puts Dolores back into the Department Store, The Handler picks the mannequin up, not even an hour later.
Wanting to use Dolores against Five, the Handler and the board members agree to send Dolores to Playtime Co. Similar to Flowey from Undertale, the Commission/Playtime co was curious if they could use Poppies and Poppy Gel to bring inanimate objects to life, not wanting to rely on bigger living test subjects.
It works, but Dolores idenity and sense of self start out very fragmented and scattered, so they are labeled a 'failure'. This is what leads the scientists to use children/living subjects in later testing, now knowing there was no avoiding that.
However, after the Bigger Bodies Initiative is suggested by Dr. Harley Sawyer, Dolores's experiments are reopened. He is modified to be the 'Bigger Body' of a toy called Swap-Me-Sally (or the male counterpart Swap-Me-Samuel), a doll that kids could swap out and customize themselves. Additional sets with different being sold so kids could make their 'Sally or Samuel' anything they could dream of.
Dolores's main form is a young adult male humanoid doll; smooth matte toy skin with subtle molded texture, visible seam lines along the cheeks, jawline, and temples, small stitched or molded seam detailing around the mouth corners and brow line. His face was manufactured and stylized to be more human-like, unlike other doll-like living toys like Lily Lovebraids. He has blue eyes and long blonde hair that is pulled back into a ponytail.
However, Dolores also has a larger, terrifying, jester-like almalmation body that he can latch himself into and control.
This body is used mostly for intimidation when interacting with humans. For his own protection and for the protection of the toys, Dolores needs to be seen as god-like and powerful.
The top half of his body is Dolores. He can change his form, due to being a Bigger Body of a toy that can be swapped around. The arms and spine are elongated, a mask covers his face, and a jester costume covers his body. The lower half was built by hand by Dolores and snaps around his waist, with his real legs hidden and connected to the inner mechanisms.
Many of the toys in Playtime Co know what Dolores really looks like. It's mostly the smaller experiments, the nameless ones, that don't see him that often.
Timeline
Everything up to a little after the Hour Of Joy is canon when it comes to Poppy Playtime Lore, but I'll explain everything here for those who don't know.
Due to timeline weirdness, this "Timeline" is mostly going to be from the Umbrella Academy/Five/Dolores's POVs.
Blue dates are the Umbrella Timeline, Red dates are Playtime's timeline. I will write them separately, but they are happening AT THE SAME TIME. Purple dates are events that connect the two timelines.
Sometime in the Future/Past - The Commission is founded by a variant of Five Hargreeves in a despreate attempt to get back to what he beleives is the 'correct' timeline. (The broken timelines/Season 4's explanation to the apocalypse and the Commission has no REAL standing here. Chalk it up to one variant of Five going crazy)
Sometime in the Past - Reginald Hargreeves's home planet is dystoryed by an apocalypse called The Cleanse, and he flees to Earth. (No, the Cleanse will not show up on Earth, it's just a doomsday that happened on a distant planet)
October 1, 1989 - Reginald releases a particle that his wife, Abigail Hargreeves, created on Earth. 43 women around the world give birth to babies without having been previously pregnant. Reginald adopts seven of these children and calls them The Umbrella Academy.
April 1st, 2002 - Five jumps to the future. Bye-bye. More on him later.
October 14th, 2006 - Umbrella Ben dies. (Is acutally a freak accident - Jennifer was a civilian girl he tried to save, they both died)
November 27th, 2010 - A spy from the Commission named Leith Pierre is sent to a company called Playtime Co. He is sent back to 1957. (Playtime's Timeline "starts" here)
April 1, 2019, to April 1, 2064 - Five jumps to the future to get stuck in a world destroyed by a meteor shower caused by Viktor's powers, leaving him stranded for approximately 45 years. Dolores is 'created' within Five's mind as his wife and loving companion.
April 3, 2064 - The Handler appears to recruit Five to the Commission. The Hanlder brings Five to headquarters, and while situated outside of the timeline, it is physically rooted in and functions within the year 1955.
November 22, 1963 - Five breaks his contract and jumps to March 24, 2019.
March 24, 2019 (again) - Five appears to his family.
March 25 - to April 1, 2019 (again) - Season 1 of Umbrella Academy. Dolores is taken from The deparment store and given to Leith Pierre at Playtime Co. in the 1980s. The Umbrellas travel to Dallas in 1963.
Siblings appear scattered across a few years in Dallas; I'm not writing the dates down.
November 15- 25, 1963 - Umbrella Academy Season 2. Dallas goes exactly as canon.
May 9th 1953 (again) - After the Handler's Death, a second Hour of Joy is performed by the Toys of Playcare after hacking into and stealing a handful of briefcases from Leith Pierre. Before the Kugelblitz can get to the Commission, the toys - including Dolores - slaughter everyone inside headquarters, including Dot and Herb. The Kugelblitz starts to deteriorate the building a few 'hours' later.
April 2 - 3, 2019 - The Umbrella Academy jumps to the Sparrow Timeline.
April 4th 2019 - Five and Lila jump to The Commission to find the carnage left by the Toys. Five finds video footage of the monsters killing everyone. The Commission's founder is already dead when Lila and Five find him.
April 5 - 9th 2019 - Season 3 of Umbrella Academy follows canon until Episode Nine. Where Five, not having received the message from his future self, decides to go into the hallway. Luther isn't killed.
--
1930s - Playtime Co. is founded. A toy company created by Elliot Ludwig with the hope of making friends and joy for kids.
1950s - First Poppy Playtime toy released. The original Poppy Playtime doll becomes a hit — designed to talk and interact like a real kid.
1957 - Leith Pierre joins Playtime Co.
1960s - Personal tragedy strikes. Elliot loses close family (his daughter), influencing later decisions and the creation of more advanced toys.
Early 1980s - The Handler gives Leith Pierre a mannequin from 2019, Dolores, for experimnation.
Late 1980s - Early Human Experiments Begin. Playtime Co. starts experimenting on humans in secret. This eventually leads to the creation of Experiment 1006 — The Prototype/Dolores, a highly intelligent, violent subject.
January 15, 1990 - Dr. Harley Sawyer is hired. Neurosurgeon Harley Sawyer comes in to help expand the company’s secret experiments.
March 30, 1990 - The Bigger Bodies Initiative starts. Sawyer proposes turning humans (mostly orphans) into living giant toys for free labor and research. This begins the Bigger Bodies Initiative.
1990 to 1995 - Major Bigger Bodies Created. Playtime Co. performs many experiments using orphans and others:
August 8, 1995 - The Hour of Joy. Dolores leads a violent rebellion inside the factory, killing many employees and resulting in Playtime Co. permanently shutting down. This event is later known as The Hour of Joy.
August 9 - 18th, 1995 - The survivors of The Hour of Joy are hunted down, some are killed, but most are kept alive by Dolores, including Preston "PW" Willard.
May 9th 1953 (again) - After The Handler's death, a second Hour of Joy is performed by the Toys of Playcare after hacking into and stealing a handful of briefcases from Leith Pierre. Before the Kugelblitz can get to the Commission, the toys - including Dolores - slaughter everyone inside headquarters, including Dot and Herb.
May 10th 1953 (again) - Any survivors of the Second Hour of Joy are killed, and the toys ransack Commission headquarters for its technology, including the paradox-proofing tech used in the Operations Bunker.
August 19th to September 30th, 1995 - The toys and their human allies take the technology and incorporate it into the factory, making it compleatly paradox proof. The toys survive by eating the bodies of the people they killed during both Hours of Joy. Dolores, however, flat-out refuses to.
October 14th - Dolores succumbs to hunger and eats a body. Knowing that this wasn't a way to live, he places trackers in the human allies send them out for supplies and food.
December 4th, 1995 to January 15th, 1996 - Renovations are made to the factory - crops are grown, animals survive, the toys thrive.
"Present Day" - The toys in Playtime Co. are thriving in their paradise until a blip of a radar warns them of an upcoming apocalypse in 2019.
AND THERE YOU HAVE IT MY FRIENDS! THE ENTIRE AU FOR PROTOYPE DOLORES!
I hope you guys all have fun reading and are intrested in the Au, I have so many places I want to take this AU and can't wait to get started on some fics!
If you have any additional questions, let me know! I'd love to hear what you guys think!
