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goodoldfashionedengineer · 5 hours ago

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Age order and family role headcanons

Man, I remember doing headcanon-y age orders for same-age siblings when I was a kid and my brothers and I decided on the age order of the Ninja Turtles (OG cartoon, as I am old) and lots of people do this for TUA, so here’s my take. This is not going to take into account Five’s time travel making him the oldest because obviously he is now the oldest both in age and in spirit and takes on that role in the family now, so that feels like cheating. This is how I picture them growing up, more like. And for fun, also saying which dysfunctional family roles I think they would have taken on and why.

Luther – His position as Number One is essentially him being the honorary oldest anyway. He grew up fast, became over-serious, and is given responsibility over the others. He’s the only one of the kids who actually believes it was their (his) fault that Ben died. Being Number One was his role in the family in a way none of the other numbers were for the other kids. Oldest children tend to feel like there’s extra pressure on them that the other kids don’t have to deal with, and they’re usually right. Parents tend to look at older children as babysitters they don’t have to pay.

His role in the dysfunctional family is The Hero, being the one who keeps everyone in line and tries to keep the dysfunction in the family as low as possible. I’ve also heard this role called “The Normalizer,” since this is the child who makes the family look as normal to outsiders as possible–keeping the drama contained so it doesn’t burn uncontrolled.

Allison – Similarly to Five, I think she wanted to come across as more mature for a bit of clout in the family dynamic. She’s definitely “older” than the siblings beneath her on this list (watch her and Diego reunite in season two if you have doubts about them) and seems to try to look out for them where she can, though I’m not sure how true this might have been when they were children, as Allison on the show has already reformed herself.

Her role is The Golden Child, or the child who gets whatever they want and is treated specially by the parent, though unlike with most examples of this role, it’s because of her power and not because she makes the abuser feel good about themselves. She said she used to use her power on her father as well as throughout her career to get whatever she wanted. It does seem to have limits, as she doesn’t get away with as much as Five seems to, but still carries forward with a life in which she’s allowed to get whatever she wants.

Diego – People usually put him right under Luther because of their competition, but I think that one owes to how they are numbered rather than how maturely they act. Age order isn’t as responsible for competition as personality type, anyway. Diego, Ben, and Vanya embody most middle children I’ve known, Diego being the extroverted type who is struggling to stand out in a large family and resenting it. Middle children have a reputation for being overlooked, and some respond by becoming louder and getting frustrated.

I think the role that would fit Diego best would be The Scapegoat. This is mostly just his personality type—he is the most outspoken about the abuse they went through, the most rebellious even in childhood apart from Allison (who wouldn’t have filled this role, thanks to her power), and the sheer disdain his stammer gets from Reginald both as a child and as an adult lead me to think it wouldn’t have taken much for Reginald to just…hate him for no good reason and start blaming shit on him unfairly. The only other potential Scapegoat I could see would be Klaus, but I think Diego’s position as Number Two as well as his choleric temperament makes him a much more likely candidate.

Vanya – Another type of middle child I see, the one who is quiet and invisible and absolutely hates it. The middle child of my family was a lot like Vanya, though he also happened to be the Golden Child because he was the sweetest one of us and Mom liked how much he needed her. I knew I wanted Vanya to be a middle child on my list because she’s practically a stereotype of a middle child. She usually gets pinned as the youngest, possibly because she is physically tiny, but she has that tendency to be overlooked that middle children usually have. She’s also just significantly more mature than Klaus, less dramatic than Five, and less bait-able than Ben, so altogether, it’s appropriate for her to be the middliest middle child of them all.

Her role in the family is The Lost Child, the one who is most isolated from the family due to some perceived need for separation. In childhood, her father forced her isolation; in adulthood, she self-isolated. It was always for the same reason and it always made her unhappy.

Ben – This one was hard, but since children of similar maturity tend to be closer to each other in childhood, I thought it made sense for him to be near the bottom with Klaus, but temperamentally, he fits more among the middle children. Word of God is that Ben and Klaus were always great friends—or is it Word of St. Paul? It was either the actors or Steve Blackman who said it, either way, and we do see them attached to each other in flashbacks. I also think Diego’s body language, while not a reliable indicator because of the extraordinary context, suggested he sees Ben as being a bit younger or possibly of similar age. He’s definitely “older” than Klaus, regardless, and doesn’t have the sense of drama that puts Five near the bottom.

This took some real reading, but a more obscure family role I found that really seemed to fit Ben is The Peacemaker. He didn’t seem lost enough to be another Lost Child nor heroic enough to be another Hero, and too emotionally intuitive to be The Doer. The Peacemaker fits well with Vanya’s statement that Ben held the family together, being the one who tries to wind down family arguments. It’s a very codependent sort of role, as well, which would have been how he learned his codependent behaviors even before Klaus’ addictions.

Five – What we see of Five in the very few flashbacks he’s in is a boy with a flair for the dramatic and a slight sense of entitlement (though part of that is just being thirteen). Younger children have the reputation for being spoiled, and the show he puts on when demanding to time travel at the breakfast table is very, very typical of younger children, who grow up in an environment where they are used to having to resort to these things to prove they are serious about something (though stabbing the table is a bit overboard—get it? Overboard?). Otherwise, they’re commonly not taken seriously.

He has shades of The Doer, but I think he’s The Golden Child in a way Allison is not—the one who reminds Reginald the most of himself, being the most intellectual and self-assured of the children, and so tends to get away with the most. The fact that he was able to cheat at the race and have the support of their father doing it suggests he could be Reginald’s favorite (it’s Luther in the comics). Even when they’re adults, he’s the only one who gets along with Reginald. He’s also the only one we absolutely know has a room on the third floor, which I am betting he could have asked for and gotten because it would be quieter than sharing walls with your siblings. This should never at any point be mistaken for the easiest role in the family, as the Golden Child grows up with unrealistic expectations of themselves and doesn’t take it well when they fail. They’re also the most prone to developing traits of the primary abuser. If this is Five’s role, at least he got out early. Silver lining.

Klaus – I know babies of the family aren’t a monolith, but the truth is, if you have two or more older siblings and you’re the youngest, you found very early on that if you weren’t loud, funny, and willing to interrupt whenever you had something to say, you weren’t gonna be heard. Klaus is seen by his siblings as the lucky one, the one who can do whatever he wants without consequence. One of the scenes that really exemplifies this is Luther expressing his envy of Klaus as I have so often heard oldest siblings express about youngest siblings. Youngest siblings are seen as having a unique freedom to be themselves and the fewest responsibilities. It’s not…completely untrue, either. Not at all untrue, actually. Speaking as a youngest. But it does come with its own set of drawbacks, like not being taken seriously and constantly being talked over. What does the baby know, after all?

The role Klaus would have would be The Mascot. The Mascot is The Funny One, preferring to deal with the conflict in the family by defusing the tension and making people laugh rather than talking it out, and being charming or funny becomes more important to them than being close to someone. And they’re usually the youngest. Surprise, surprise. They can also be seen as the most innocent, the one most in need of protection, without the family realizing the burden they’re carrying with their lighthearted attitude.

Pogo and Grace share the Enabler/Caretaker role, being the ones trying to keep everyone happy while inadvertently making it easier for Reginald to perpetuate his abuse, since they’re trying to soothe feelings instead of allowing natural consequences to happen. In one case, that’s due to learned helplessness; in the other, she’s literally programmed not to interfere with Hargreeves. Still waiting to learn more about how Pogo’s history with the family really went, because I absolutely believe he loved those kids, but love doesn’t mean you make the right choices.

#tua #the umbrella academy #luther hargreeves #diego hargreeves #allison hargreeves #klaus hargreeves #five hargreeves #ben hargreeves #dr. pogo #grace hargreeves #tua meta #reginald hargreeves #viktor hargreeves

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goodoldfashionedengineer · 6 hours ago

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which sibling would’ve gotten along better with Raymond, Sissy and Dave?

I would have loved a proper scene between Ray and Diego. Part of it is that Ray has had a few traumatic experiences from white people over the color of his skin recently, let alone the number of traumatic experiences he’s had in the past, so I think he’d be more comfortable with Diego than with Klaus or Luther. The rest is that they could be chaotic good bros tearing shit up. At the very least, Diego would have so much respect for what Ray does, and while he definitely resorts to violence where Ray would not, I think Ray would still relate to him more than any of the others apart from Allison. Though I’d also love him and Ben to talk literature, since that’s what Ray used to teach.

Sissy? I’d want her and Allison to go shopping. Allison would make her feel so girly and elegant, the way Sissy wistfully talks about. Put Sissy in some flowy cottagecore dress. She would still be a badass with a shotgun, but she’d have so much fun exploring how she can express her softer side. Klaus would enjoy coming along, too. He’d be Sissy’s greatest cheerleader. Can you imagine Sissy coming out of the fitting room in something beautiful and getting dual gasps from Allison and Klaus?

I would want Dave and Luther to have bro time with a six-pack, but instead of watching sports, they’re watching some kind of nerdy shit because they’re both nerds. Beer, chips, dip, and watching a space shuttle launching on the news. Or maybe Stranger Things or Game of Thrones. Depending on what they’re watching, Five might join with a glass of dry sherry. Diego declines joining them, just steals a beer, but winds up standing behind the couch and watching the entire thing anyway while making fun of the others for being so into this nerdy shit.

#tua meta #the umbrella academy #diego hargreeves #raymond chestnut #sissy cooper #dave katz #ben hargreeves #allison hargreeves #klaus hargreeves #luther hargreeves #five hargreeves

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goodoldfashionedengineer · 6 hours ago

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Okay, but I'm far more in favor of your version of Luther fanon than actual fanon, because at least that would be funny. Just making a new fanfic genre: Luther bashing but instead of hating on him for no reason it's actually just crack and he's a mean girl instead of an asshole.

Luther "Delta Airlines" Hargreeves becomes an ao3 tag. That would be funny. I want it. Complete with dancing to Jingle Bell Rock in a slutty Santa costume.

Look, it's not that Luther is an angel. He's mean sometimes. But they're all mean. Seven out of seven members of this family are assholes to varying degrees. It's just that, broadly, only a few of them actually get judged for it while people make excuses for the others. Vanya, Klaus, and Five are bulletproof. There is not a single damn thing they can do that will earn any criticism. Vanya ended the world? Wasn't her fault. Five slaughters a room full of people with an axe and a manic grin? He's a sweetie making sacrifices for his family. Klaus steals a truck and expects Ben to be his attack dog to let him get away with it? Apparently, Ben should have complied. According to fandom.

Ben gets forgiven somewhat because of his relationship with Klaus (though that's the same thing that also gets him eviscerated sometimes), so really, it's Luther, Diego, and Allison who get truly slammed. Diego is camouflaged somewhat because he actually was pretty heinous in the beginning, and half the time he's forgiven because (again) of his relationship with Klaus, but Luther and Allison are the nicest people in the family. Look at how Luther behaves with Olga Foroga on the phone and tell me he's not a boy scout. He makes sure people are okay, he's Five's closest ally, and he becomes Vanya's #1 defender. Then Allison, good god. She spent the first season begging to have a relationship with Vanya, then blaming herself when it got her hurt. In the second season, she was able to start fresh, and she chose to spend her time making the world a better place at great personal risk.

And this isn't hating on the bulletproof characters, either. Klaus is actually my favorite, and that's why I'm very protective of him being a shitty little garbage raccoon with a hidden empathy well that would eat him alive if he didn't cover it up sometimes. If you're going to love a character, love the whole character.

People could stand to get over the need to classify characters (and people) into black and white categories and just acknowledge that everyone is messed up and most people are doing their best. If someone is imperfect, they're canceled--only, everyone is imperfect. Where does that leave us?

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goodoldfashionedengineer · 6 hours ago

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I absolutely love your character insights and analysis! Have you ever tried to analyse the writing on Klaus' bedroom walls? I feel like entire essays could probably be written about it...

Thank you! Annoyingly, The Making of The Umbrella Academy has two things about Klaus’ room: 1) jack, and 2) shit. Great details on Allison, Luther, and Five’s rooms, Vanya’s and Diego’s apartments, and a few good shots of the mausoleum of all places, but whoever put the guide together didn’t care very much about Klaus or Ben. So. Gotta use my own eyes and brain here.

I would love to know whether the writers did the writing on that wall, or if it was entirely a set design thing, because that would make a difference in how much stock I put in it. Most of it seems to be the same handwriting, though, if at various levels of stressed. And he does that thing kids who learned cursive do where sometimes you start writing in cursive without realizing it, and when you realize it, you switch back to print.

But since it is filmed and on the show, it is canon, so I’ll look at it like canon. Looking at this post, if I was writing all that stuff for the show, I’d be thinking of a few different things:

1. Shit Klaus wrote because he was high.

2. Shit Klaus wrote because he was an artsy, gothy teen.

3. Shit Klaus wrote because he thought it was funny.

4. Shit Klaus wrote as legitimate self-expression.

You can have some really weird thoughts when you’re high that seem deep to you at the time but make no sense to someone who isn’t high, and I think that’s a lot of what’s on his walls. My teens were definitely an experimental stage for writing supposedly avant-garde things, and I think there’s some of that, too. And then there’s stuff like “One day I aspire to illegally land a plane in Mexico. A night in jail, Mexican jail, is character-building.” I think he just thought that was funny. Then there’s gonna be a lot of crap that covers more than one category.

Regarding actual self-expression, I’m thinking that’s part of the repeated themes and statements he makes. I’ll talk about those.

Uncomfortable tactile sensations.

1. “Where the fire burns so do I feel the pain electrify me.”

2. “My skin crawls with the seething visions of the night.”

3. “Feel the pain electrify me.”

My mind went to drug withdrawal, but there’s something more sinister I’ll discuss below. 1 and 3 are written separately, and repeats can be considered significant. Some of this could also be a response to the forced tattoo, though tattooing doesn’t feel so much like burning or electricity to me as being cut into with a penknife. Look under the category of Reginald’s rule for perhaps a more significant theory.

Darkness.

4. “It makes me feel like dark + small.”

5. “Even in the darkest caves there is a light!”

6. “Well I settled on ‘lamplight’ (the first sight, in which I learned to see divinity looking out the bedroom window).”

We know the dark is/was a PTSD trigger for him (he does fall asleep in the dark in season two, and peoples’ triggers changing is very normal). I think 4 is evocative of the mausoleum. 5 is written more than once.

Connections with people, or lack thereof.

7. “To keep at hand whatever it was the mountains meant and maybe that was love and maybe it was longing.”

8. “Sorry… I tried to wake up for you but sleep took me again…”

9. “Cheats, you lose!”

10. “And why didn’t I ever actually love the others?”

11. “I am [illegible] a lone and lonely sight.”

12. “There was a time when the need for love was nothing more [than] a sigh, a long look at a red light. And now, love is locked in [cut off]…is an old acquaintance.”

Two of these are written more than once that I can see: 8 and 9. 9 is written all over the place. 8 makes me wonder if it was written about an early attempt to get sober. Overall, the impression I’m getting of Klaus’ childhood emotional state is that he was very lonely and felt unloved, but also seemed to have difficulty reaching out as well. 8 and 10 get me thinking about depersonalization and derealization, forms of dissociation that happen commonly when someone is traumatized. Like the world around him doesn’t feel real, and neither does he.

Lack of identity.

13. “Faceless and nameless.”

14. “How do I know who I am?”

15. “How do you know who I am?”

14 is written twice. This makes it meaningful. I know I’ve read Rob Sheehan talk about how Klaus has no idea who he really is, so it’s not surprising. Also ties in with my thoughts about depersonalization above, but a very chilling possibility is that he’s writing about/to ghosts. Especially 15. I think 15 was a question he asked to the ghosts.

Deeply worrying indications of his feelings about his life under Reginald’s rule.

16. “Where the fire burns so do I feel the pain electrify me. You cannot kill the willing to die.”

17. “Feel the pain electrify me.”

18. “Obey, obey, obey, oh can you obey.”

19. “Fast as I can run.”

20. “Do not feed the animals.”

21. “Off with his head.”

22. “Feast on famine.”

You Look Like Death wasn’t out yet when this set was made, but it revealed Reginald used to electrocute Klaus without anesthesia. I don’t want to call it ECT because ECT is not and has never been “run uncontrolled electric currents through patient’s body at increasing levels to see what happens while they beg you to stop.” It is done for very stubborn cases of depression under general anesthesia with all kinds of monitoring and precautions. There was nothing therapeutic about what Hargreeves did for experimentation. So that’s what 16 and 17 make me think of, and presumably, Gerard could have told Steve Blackman some of what was in it. I know he told Robert Sheehan some of it. In context, 20 strongly makes me think Klaus felt like he was being treated like an animal. Obviously up to interpretation. 20 and 22 are both hunger-themed. Was starvation part of these kids’ punishments sometimes?

Truth.

23. “See no truth, speak no truth, hear no truth.”

24. “What is the truth of everything.”

I’m thinking about him growing old enough to question what he’s been told. 23 seems like exactly what a teen goth would write as soon as they knew about Gandhi’s monkey figurines.

Numbness or disturbed emotional state.

25. “You cannot kill the willing to die.”

26. “It makes me feel like dark + small.”

27. “What must I do to feel anything? Vacuum the void of space. Space dust all clean. Beast creatures mythical and real must be ground to dust to start anew.”

28. “Forge my soul in the fire.”

29. “The choices I’ve made could be my own self-understanding. I could balance this.”

30. “I became a frozen, forgotten frame of mind.”

31. “Time is passing quickly. There is much to enjoy and all the things I said I’d do…I can feel the guilt. How much will time will it take?”

32. “I never say he suffered!”

33. “Consume everything then consume yourself with me. Destroy everything I love. What is the essence of the forest? Why must I go?”

25 is an unsurprising thought, given what this kid is going through. Same with 27 and 30. The dissociative aspects of psychological trauma can cause some really disturbing numbness (you feel uncomfortably numb, hahaHAHAhaha…get it). 28 is written all over the place and seems almost surprisingly optimistic for Klaus. I would looooove to know what 29 means, if it might be part of his early attitude toward his addiction. 31 is crossed out, which motivated me to read it properly. I’d love to know why it’s crossed out. It’s crossed out in a different color, suggesting it was done at a later time and not part of some design. What are the things he said he’d do and why does he feel guilty about them? 32 is written twice. The last question in 33 makes me think he’s writing down something a ghost is saying. Overall, I’d kill to get a child psychologist’s opinion on this stuff, but to me a lot of it seems consistent with what I’ve read about PTSD.

Vaguely nihilistic sentiment.

34. “Wants, desires, nothing else matters.”

35. “Consume everything then consume yourself.”

36. “The day we die.”

37. “Don’t worry about the present and live in the past.”

38. “Yes years gone by without a word, but now in ink that’s soon to smudge.”

35 may be about his drug use. 36 is written more than once, including by a sticker of an eyeball. Five would have gone nuts if he’d noticed it.

Overall, I think we’re looking at a kid who had a lot of depth beneath the clownish attitude his siblings knew him for. Not all of this is dark, doom-and-gloom stuff. Some of it is humorous, some of it darkly humorous, some of it surprisingly optimistic, some of it’s just deep and the rest is inscrutable. What I love about this is that it acknowledges that abused children are still entire people. Adults like to wrap them up in pretty, innocent little packages and imagine they just shiver and hide under the bed all the time. Klaus wasn’t that kind of cliché. He was a kid who had a lot of people fooled into thinking he was shallow and carefree, but wrote cares all over his walls. Some sentences I can’t fully read keep popping up with the word “love.” I do try not to over-woobify my faves, but goddammit Klaus. He keeps insisting on breaking my heart.

You know what I realize, looking at this? I get why he and Ben were close as kids. Ben is also deep, a literature nerd, and seems like someone who could look at these walls and get what’s going on. Prior to Klaus’ drug use, they could have had some deep conversations the others may not believe happened with Klaus. I’m not saying Klaus is a great intellectual, but I can see where he and Ben could get on a similar wavelength.

A nice touch is that the stuff written in the most childish handwriting is the most faded. Quote #7 looks like it was written first years before, then rewritten when he was older.

Something right by his bed is like he woke up, took a black crayon, rubbed a black area on the wall, and scratched off a whole “message” that may just be him scribbling to let off steam. The only legible word is “NO.” Positioned directly under it on the desk is a jar of crayons. Though the more I look at it, the more I think it looks like charcoal?

There’s also “THIS IS THE DOOR” written twice in the biggest letters in the room. I’d love to know what that means.

In addition to all the writing, we get Klaus’ personal sense of style. Mostly, there’s a darkly witchy feel to it. Lots of candles, some slightly macabre imagery. A tiny electric keyboard, camera, and camcorder indicate he might have had artistic hobbies, or at least tried them out before getting bored with them. Cast iron teapot (a very good way to make tea), a sitting area by a record player with some dark boho décor. Records. CDs. Incense. Very small old television. Beaded curtains.

OF COURSE he has more than one hookah—one by his coffee table, one by his dresser.

Photos by Aidan Gallagher

Cutesy stickers. Some are of ghosts and skulls; a number are of aliens and UFOs. A hot plate with what looks like a Turkish coffee setup (you know, those tiny tiny cups of incredibly strong delicious coffee that’s almost like dark chocolate). Childhood crayon drawings. Leather-bound journal. Psychedelic imagery. Probably a Pink Floyd fan. I wonder if the fairy lights that frame his headboard come down around the desk for a reason—late night art? Coffee? Using that hot plate for something else?

Something that might be a tentacle monster made out of pipe cleaners attached to a bedpost.

It also looks to me like there’s no writing on the walls that were part of Vanya’s room. So maybe Klaus didn’t write/draw on his walls past a certain age, or wanted to leave that part of his space unscribbled-on. He would have been 17+ at this time and might have wanted that area to be a more grown-up space.

#klaus hargreeves #the umbrella academy #tua

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