Astoria Joo

"The Reflection Walker"

### Relatives

Unnamed parents (deceased);Linus Lance (former supervising officer; presumed dead)

### Affiliation

The Dinosaur Pompadour (employee)The Temps Commission (formerly, under coercion)

### Occupation

Barista at The Dinosaur PompadourAgent, briefcase engineer at The Temps Commission (formerly, under coercion)

## Other Information

### Powers

Reflection Walking, Object Restoration, Object Manipulation, Object Reanimation

### Writer

Clares

**Astoria Joo** is a fan-made original character portrayed on Twitter under the handle @thisisasto. Neither the character nor the writer have any true affiliation with the Umbrella Academy franchise or with any individual whose image is used to portray the character.

## Biography

Joo Eunyoung (Hangeul: 주 은영), alias Astoria Helene Joo, or commonly known as Asto, is one of the unadopted super children born on October 1, 1989. At 2 years old, Eunyoung was taken from her family home in Seoul by The Temps Commission, when her biological parents went to an office party where her father worked at. The nanny who babysat little Eunyoung and her unnamed parents were killed by Commission assassins to make sure they won't call the police on the child's dissapearance. Other than baby Eunyoung, said assassins also confiscated Eunyoung's birth certificate and any records of her existence. The Commission named the child Astoria Helene after the two names were found in the folder where the birth certificate was; the name was prepared as a Western name choice, for the family planned to immigrate to the United States of America in mid-1990s, courtesy of the father's job.

Since then, Asto grew up in The Commission under the reluctant care of agent Linus Lance, a senior agent who only knew how to take a life instead of nurturing one. By the orders of The Handler, Lance took care of Asto with two goals in mind: to make an effective superpowered assassin out of the child, and to speed up Asto's power manifestation, hoping that it's something that can be used to make her an effective agent. When Asto was 8 years old, The Commission's surgeons initially tried to embed DNA of assassins into her own, in hope to replicate the successful procedure done to Five Hargreeves. However, Asto's DNA rejected the foreign DNAs, making her severely ill in reaction only six hours after the second intense procedure, resulting in a month-long coma. Traumatized by the surgeries, Asto rebelled against Lance when he ordered her to undergo another surgery, causing her to be placed in isolated treatment room. Persuasions and threats didn't succeed, making Lance gaslighting Asto as "useless" and "unworthy to be born on that day." Lucky for Lance and unlucky for Asto, it was in time when The Commission's scientists were designing an experiment aimed to subdue disobedient Commission personnels, as well as engineering their dopamine and endorphin levels to be more dismissive of pain; making the subjects feel happy instead when in pain or in danger. Later, this experiment is dubbed Square One. Without hesitation, Lance signed Asto up as the experiment's patient zero.

At age 10, Asto underwent processes of Square One, as well as combat training from Lance, who still wished that Asto has a combat-related superpower. In the eighth month of the experiment, Asto's object restoration power manifested, when she subconsciously fixed a big crack on a wall and was able to restore an old, torn punching bag, making it look like new. Disappointed at their power, Lance added more combat training in Asto's daily schedule, hoping that with more fight training her restoration power can be reversed instead, while still demeaning their power and deemed puff "an absolute waste in existence." Asto, glad to finally have a superpower and a reason to not being an agent, intentionally trained her restoration skills in secret, in hope that Lance would eventually gave up on her and released them in a random timeline, to be free. However, since Lance is a seasoned agent, he soon found out about her plan and devised his own plan to get Asto to use their power as he wished it to be.

At age 11, Lance took Asto on her first field mission, where she was tasked to restore a building damaged by a mission. Lance ordered Asto to fix the building, lying that The Commission wanted to use it as an asset; while in reality he had ordered other agents to line up the bodies of the agency's dying enemies in the broken concrete walls. Asto, horrified at the low, dying groans of the people in the walls, thinking it was the sound of ghosts, initially refused to use her power and attempted to escape. However, Lance caught the child, gaslighted Asto that puff is useless unless she can do what The Commission wants her to do. Before Asto could reluctantly use her power to fix the walls, Lance got impatient and injected an engineered dopamine serum-made by the Square One team-on puff. Soon, Asto complied, no longer horrified at the task at hand, and 'fixed' the entire building. Seeing the success of the serum from Square One, Lance repeated the pattern of injecting the dopamine serum on puff before missions, later finding out that it made Asto more excited to fight and kill and fix for darker reasons. But, the serum also made her downplay her injuries, making her respond to pain with happiness and laughter; as if her pain was something funny and entertaining. Sometimes Lance would even mix an extra serum in Asto's vitamin before missions, convincing her that it's a 'health supplement'. Due to her restoration power that looks like she could rewind time for objects, and them running around the mission sites to 'fix' it, Asto got the moniker 'Rewind Rabbit'.

Over the years, Asto lived and trained as an agent right under Agent Lance's control. Her messed-up dopamine, added with Lance's manipulation that their power's purpose is to whatever he ordered puff to do, made her believe that Lance genuinely accepting her power. When Asto was 13, their power developed into object manipulation and reanimation. The two subpowers manifested late as the consequence of excessive consumption of the engineered dopamine serum, as well as as a side effect of stunting her growth spurt, making puff look younger than their actual age. Before their 20th birthday, Asto was sent on a team mission to 'fix' an abandoned prison and trap the people inside, but the mission ended badly, resulting puff to be separated from the team. They got separated for a few weeks, with Asto starting to feel effects of early withdrawal of the Square One serum. During her disappearance, Asto felt disoriented, extreme emotional overdrive, paranoia and first signs of acute depression, due to the lack of the engineered dopamine serum to keep her artificially happy. Asto was found a few weeks later, when the effect of the serum started to diminish.

Asto was immediately taken to get medical attention, while their mind started to remember what she did more clearly without the fake dopamine smokescreen caused by the serum. Memories of the people in the walls disturbed her sleep, causing her to wanting to stay awake as much as she can so that she won't have to see them in their dreams. This results in her interest in coffee, finding caffeine is both helping and tasty to help facing the memories and the guilt. Agent Lance was not happy of this, and threatened Asto to take the engineered dopamine serum again. Asto refused, not wanting to take more of said serum, because for once she finally can think clearly without feeling the fake happiness and relief caused by the serum. At the eighth night of their hospitalization, Asto escaped her room to go to the Temps Commission's rooftop, but she ended up hiding from patroling agents in the mirror in the bathroom. This was the early manifestation of her reflection walking power; and spent the night there, crying, sleeping, until the morning. This was also the moment Asto set their intention to escape The Commission, and get rid of Linus Lance for good.

Medical examination results in the following days stated that Asto was no longer fit for field duty, mandating puff to be reassigned to handle and fix briefcases the agents use to time travel. The reassignment enraged Lance, who went emotional and blamed Asto's incompetence to stay with her team at her last mission, repeating his gaslighting of how useless Asto was. Lacking the artificial happiness, Asto started to realize Lance's words, but is trying to be optimistic anyway as puff adapted in their new station: to study the briefcases and fix them, while secretly devising a plan of escape. Their nickname of 'Rewind Rabbit' returned on her, as Asto was often seen running around the briefcase lab to get components for repair, so much so that at times puff was hopping instead of running. In reaction to Lance's gaslighting blame game, Asto tried to pay no mind, despite Lance coming to the briefcase division to berate Asto daily. It took Asto about two years to study the specifications and assembling of a briefcase, steal necessary parts to make her own to escape the agency and prepare/steal documents and materials needed such as ID and money. In the same two years, Asto made her way as one of the senior briefcase engineer, to make her extended hours working and studying the briefcases more plausible in The Commission's eyes. Once puff got all the parts and specifications, Asto started to assemble her own getaway briefcase, and waited for the right time to use it. One day, when puff was looking for files to reference her fabricated ID, Asto found her personnel file and discovered that The Commission had lost her birth certificate they took the night Asto was taken; but the remaining files gave enough detail of her Korean name, her parents' name and death, and her hometown. This was the first time Asto found something about puffself beyond The Commission, so she stole the file to study it, and study about herself further too.

When it's near the time to escape, Asto heard that Lance's briefcase needed a fix, so she tampered his briefcase to only work one way and added a bomb to make it explode if Lance were to try to tinker with it even more. After making sure that Lance received the tampered briefcase on the day of his assigned mission, Asto went ahead and used her own briefcase to escape The Commission. Puff arrived at several foreign timelines before arriving at the Sparrow Timeline, just a few weeks prior to The Umbrella Academy. In the Sparrow Timeline, Asto tried to practice her own powers, including her reflection walking, while working as a barista at The Dinosaur Pompadour cafe. It was weeks later puff eventually met Rosetta Parisi, who introduced her to the world of superheroes, and the rest of The Umbrella and Sparrow Academy members.

Since then, Asto had lived in the Sparrow Academy building. Asto appointed herself as the building's unofficial construction manager, where she fixed minor and major building damages over time; as well as trying to make peace with her power to use it for good, and to prove that her restoration power is not useless. Due to the excessive engineered dopamine she consumed in her youth, at times Asto still automatically feel amusement and laugh in the face of pain or danger, and seemed optimistic in stressful conditions. To deal with this, Asto use various methods to cope with the engineered dopamine withdrawal, two of them by drinking coffee and consuming sweet treats.

## Powers

Reflection Walking**:** able to walk through, hop in between, and exit reflective surfaces such as mirrors and glass, and at times water puddles, with appropiate size of their body. The reflections must be in eyesight to enter to or exit from.

**Object Restoration:** able to restore damaged objects, from recent damage time up to 5+ years since last damage occured. Speed of restoration depends on object condition such as parts completeness, cleanliness, and its organic/nonorganic matter composition. If Asto needed to fabricate new parts of the object to fix it, it'll take longer for puff to restore the object to its initial state.

**Object Manipulation:** able to manipulate objects within reach to move and shape according to will. The objects can be combined to create a new one, and will revert back to its own pieces when stopped.

**Object Reanimation:** able to move objects within reach and eyesight. Duration to control the new objects depends on targeted scale, distance, and solidness of said objects.

## Trivia

* Her favorite type of clothing is a hoodie.
* Had a mechanical wolf puff named Tosca, kept at the junkyard they frequented to practice her powers.
* Asto's favorite color is light blue.
* Asto can be found often wearing a yellow hard hat, a reference of their restoration powers.
* Often uses the word "whoowhee" in conversations. "Whoowhee" itself is a neutral word used to emphasis the vibe or mood of a situation, depending on context. It can go from "whoowhee!" for a positive emphasis (such as happiness, excitement, a good surprise, etc), to a "what in the whoowhee..?" for a neutral response, to a "that is not whoowhee" for a tendency to negative emphasis (bewilderment, sadness, uncomfortableness, etc.)
* In an alternate timeline, Asto is named Elodie Hargreeves (who can be found on @elodiehrgrvs), got adopted into that timeline's Oblivion Academy. Elodie possessed the powers of carbon manipulation and Technopathy. Despite having two powers, Elodie is more known as "The Technopath."
* Asto works in a cafe named The Dinosaur Pompadour. Although their official title is barista, they are also one of the junior bakers since the cafe made their cakes and pastries fresh. Asto's baking specialty is fruit-based cakes.
* They have a license to drive a forklift.
* Sometimes, Asto struggled to recognize her own emotions, whether the happiness she felt was genuine or artificial as the remnants of the engineered dopamine still lingers in her brain.

## Video

* [1]Video edit of Asto in 79 seconds, featuring an AU where Asto is adopted/a Brelly. Originally posted on Asto's Twitter page.