{Got a war going on in my head [OPEN]

[deadlycurves]

WHO: Shadow!Diego and YOU!
WHERE: Various, noted where necessary
WHEN: Oct 23-26
WHAT: Shadow plot shenanigans~
WARNINGS: Language/violence

Starters in comment headers, one each for Shadow!Diego and Real!Diego, and one for the destruction of the shadow. Pick your poison!

Comments

{Yeah I'm no stranger to the shadow of doubt » Shadow Shenanigans » Around the city of Nonah

[deadlycurves]

There's a man wandering the streets, and he might seem familiar. He's no stranger to this city, after all, he's been here for awhile by now. And it's not like the entire city wasn't aware of the giant explosion at the Hargreeves house a few weeks ago. Hard to miss something that big going down in your hometown. He's fallen into certain routines in his time in this city. Ones that he's following now, in the earliest hours of the morning, running. That he'll continue throughout the day, as if it were as normal as breathing-- a little random grocery shopping... a stop at the gym later in the afternoon. It's just normal, right? Except nothing about Diego Hargreeves has ever been normal, and it's manifested in burning-gold eyes as he moves through the days like everything is fine. It's not fine. It's never fine. Everything is always being blown to hell, every time he turns around. He can't keep anything he manages to build together. It's only right, though, isn't it? Not good enough to be leader of the Umbrella Academy. Not good enough for the police academy. Not good enough for Patch. Not even good enough to keep a friendship that had felt as easy as breathing before it exploded into pieces, too. Just like everything always does, because he isn't- and he never was- and maybe that's just his entire lot in life, in every universe, with every person. Just not up to par. Sometimes, this golden-eyed doppelganger hangs around Diego and taunts him; others, he can be found wandering on his own, maybe even attempting to impersonate the one he was made from.

{More and more I feel less and less - real!Diego during Shadow shenanigans » Around Nonah

[deadlycurves]

It doesn't take long for Diego to realize there's some weird, golden-eyed copy of himself running around. Some asking around points to it being part of the reality-falling-apart nonsense going on lately. And here he'd been hoping he could avoid being hit by any of it. Apparently, he's supposed to accept that part of himself to make it stop. But that's so much easier said than done. He's completely aware of everything the doppelganger version has said every time he's come across him-- "Weak and pathetic and never going to amount to anything." "What kind of brother can't talk to a sister, or stop his brother from killing himself from the inside out?" "Police Academy? You really think you can handle another rejection?" "You were never good enough, and that still hasn't changed in thirty years. And it probably never will." but apparently awareness isn't the same as acceptance and the golden-eyed jerk is still hanging around to taunt him whenever he sees fit, whether it's by impersonating him elsewhere or literally hanging around and annoying the hell out of Diego with his insults.

{No don't drop me now, I'll sink into the underground » Jeopardy Mall » Plot end/Shadow destructio

[deadlycurves]

What he didn't know is that there could be effects on him personally if he refused to accept those insecurities that were running around with his face. This is how he's ended up in the middle of a shift at work, randomly and out of nowhere stuck in a pit of quicksand. He knows enough to know that struggling really won't help matters, but he's about waist deep and not looking like he is getting out of this particular predicament any time soon. "Well, fuck." he mutters under his breath to himself.