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itsthenovelteafactor · 3 years ago

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Fall of the House of Hargreeves

So I mentioned a while back in my Superhero Gothic meta that there were a number of parallels between the season one finale of The Umbrella Academy and the Edgar Allen Poe short story The Fall of the House of Usher and that I could probably write a whole meta on that if anyone was interested. Shout out and love to the anon who requested that I do that!

It’s been a minute since I’ve done one of these long form metas, but I am very excited to get back to writing about two of my favorite things: gothic literature and chaotic superheroes.

Part I: The Fall of the House of Usher

The Fall of the House of Usher (which I’ll call House of Usher for convenience for the rest of this meta) is a short story by Edgar Allen Poe first published in 1939. It is considered a classic gothic short story, and deals with themes of family, madness, inheritance, and isolation.

Since it’s in the public domain, I’ll go ahead and link a pdf to the story here. If you aren’t interested in reading, though, or just want a refresher, the story follows an unnamed narrator going to visit his ill friend, a man named Roderick Usher in his isolated (and very spooky) family estate. Upon arrival, he discovers that Roderick’s sister, Madeline Usher, is also ill, and has a tendency to fall into dreamlike trances.

Over the course of the visit, Roderick confesses to the narrator that not only does he believe the house is alive, but that it is connected to the fate of the family which, at this point, only includes Roderick and Madeline. He later comes and tells the narrator that Madeline has died, and enlists his help in order to bury her in the family tomb beneath the house. They do so, but for the next couple of days Roderick is suspiciously...on edge.

Then, one dark and stormy night, Roderick shows up in the narrator’s room incredibly worked up, and throws open the window, and starts low-key (read: high-key) having a breakdown. The narrator is unsure as to why until he hears ripping and tearing sounds coming from somewhere in the house. These ripping and tearing sounds are revealed to be Madeline whom Roderick and the narrator buried alive whose appearance scares Roderick to death, right before she collapses, also dead from the strain of tearing through the foundations of the house.

The narrator decides this would probably be a good time to leave and is very much right about that because as soon as he leaves, the house (which was already in pretty bad shape) splits in two and collapses into the lake surrounding it. The end.

Part II: Umbrella Academy as Gothic

So, there are probably a couple similarities between House of Usher and The Umbrella Academy season one that stand out right off the bat, but I’d like to start by taking a step back to talk about thematic parallels between the two works. If you’d like to read a very long winded explanation of why I consider The Umbrella Academy to be a modern gothic tale, I have a really long meta about it.

If not, here’s a quick overview:

Gothic does not have a clearly defined set of requirements as a genre, but its purpose is to explore the contradictions and the failing edifices of convention in a way that is dramatic and often fantastic.

Gothic fiction plays with reality, but usually in a way that is representative of the characters and story.

It often situates itself during times of great change, as there is something haunting about the irreversible passage of time, particularly for those that struggle to acknowledge it and hide behind conventions that have grown increasingly irrelevant.

Poe is considered one of the classic authors of gothic fiction (though the genre significantly predates him), and is decidedly one of the best well-known examples of it.

The Umbrella Academy is a family drama about former child superheroes dealing with their trauma while trying to prevent an apocalypse that their every move seems to set further in motion. It explores the messy and complicated relationships between siblings who have been abused and pit against each other for years. And yeah, it’s fun with great music and talking gorillas and dance sequences, but the premise is kind of hard for me to read as anything other than gothic.

Part III: Parallels

Like House of Usher, the first season of Umbrella Academy takes place in a massive, largely empty mansion where siblings gather with disastrous consequences. Both works explore a family that is past their prime and disconnected from the present. They also both explore the psychological toll of isolation, the consequences of tyrannical family rules, and why it is a really bad idea to lock your unstable sister in a basement and just leave her there.

Let’s start with some thematics parallels. Everyone in House of Usher is extremely isolated, and the absence of anything resembling the modern world amongst the house full of relics is part of the horror. All of the siblings in Umbrella Academy are defined by their isolation as well, physically (Luther, Five, and Ben), socially (Vanya, Diego, Klaus, and Allison), and emotionally (legit all of them). It is this isolation that drives the conflict of the story, feeding into every characters’ choices.

In both House of Usher and Umbrella Academy, the main characters are trapped in this isolated state as a direct result of their familial legacy. In House of Usher, the titular house is a character itself, a manifestations of the obligations Madeline and Roderick hold as members of an aristocratic family that is so far divorced from wealth and status that it keeps them from ever fully moving on and rejoining the real world. In Umbrella Academy, the characters are similarly trapped by their familial legacy, this time in the form of the specter of their abusive father, and the roles he created for them. Like the Usher siblings, the Hargreeves have no way of maintaining the roles their family left out for them – they were never given the tools to function in the real world and it cripples them – but are trapped in them regardless.

Part IV: The Woman* in White

*As of the time I am writing this, nothing has been said regarding Vanya’s gender identity being written to match Elliot Page’s. I am using she/her pronouns for Vanya, as that is what has been used for the character thus far.

Aside from thematic parallels, however, the most direct connection between the short story and series, and in fact the reason I was inspired to write this meta in the first place is the way both of the stories end: with a sister trapped beneath the house clawing her way out to face her brother(s and sister) and creating a disruption of the family legacy so great that the entire estate crumbles.

Madeline Usher is described at this point as wearing a white dress, strained with the injuries she sustained from physically breaking herself out of the basement tomb her brother buried her alive in. Vanya, of course, becomes at this moment the White Violin, and though she has not yet had the epic violin-music-so-powerful-it-changes-the-color-of-her-clothes scene, the principal still stands.

As characters, there are also a couple of noteworthy parallels between Vanya and Madeline. The narrator at one point describes “the illness of the lady Madeline had lone been beyond the help of her doctors. She seemed to care about nothing” (Poe, 27). The reader never knows what illness precisely is the cause of Madeline’s apparent madness, but we see the effects. It dulls her emotional responses to situations and leaves her withdrawn and powerless. Similarly, we learn over the course of the first season of The Umbrella Academy that the medication Reginald Hargreeves prescribed Vanya for her anxiety is actually a power suppressor for her abilities that has much the same effect – because they are strengthened by extreme emotion, the drugs numb Vanya’s emotional responses and deprive her of the ability to access her powers.

Additionally, the final scene of the story story shows Madeline escaping her tomb during a great storm and going to face her brother who put her there, the storm itself being a metaphor for her anguish that tears the house apart. Vanya’s connection to the destruction of the house is a bit more literal, but it is similarly a manifestation of her anguish and trauma. She sees flashbacks of her siblings being distant and rude to her in their childhoods and the anger she feels rips the foundation apart.

It is not entirely clear in the short story why Roderick buries Madeline alive – there are a lot of theories: he genuinely believed she was dead, he wanted her out of the picture, he himself was succumbing to the madness of the house, etc – but the guilt he feels for doing so manifests as him hearing her scraping her way out for several days preceding her escape. The justification for Vanya’s imprisonment is more clear in text, but the series of flashbacks make it clear that it is not just the imprisonment that has driven her over the edge. It it guilt for her sister, anger at her abusive upbringing that is much more easily directed at her siblings than her father, the newfound emotions experienced by being off her medication for the first time since childhood, Leonard’s manipulations, etc.

In both cases, amidst a spiral of emotions and experiences folding in on themselves, Vanya and Madeline experience a single, cold moment of clarity that drives them to escape, and it is that moment of clarity that breaks the shadow of the family legacy. They observe the situation as it stands and realize that it is completely unacceptable, and it is the realization that leads everything to crumble. Because gothic literature is focused on the complexities of maintaining that which is out of date, the realization that things must change can break the spell.

Part V: Conclusions

As per usual, I have no great theories on why this is or what it means. One of the reasons I love gothic literature is that it is rife with meaning that can be more easily felt than deciphered. I welcome any and all interpretations, theories, (politely worded) disagreements, and comments.

Thanks for taking the time to read; I have a lot of fun doing these. Enjoy spooky season, y’all. 💛

#The Umbrella Academy meta #TUA meta #The Umbrella Academy #TUA #The Fall of the House of Usher #House of Usher #Edgar Allen Poe #back here with the long metas on gothic literature and superhero tv #Vanya Hargreeves #Madeline Usher #happy spooky season y'all

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natewrightt · 4 years ago

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Can I request number 13 from your prompt list with Five? Thank you! ☺️

13: this might sound weird but can I kiss you?

Summary: Five refuses to believe that he’s in love with a girl

Warnings: none, just fluff lmao

Ship: Five Hargreeves x soft!reader (because I love him with soft readers jsjiwjwue)

Note: in this fic he never time travelled and therefore is around 15. Thanks!

—————————————————————————-

It’s ridiculous.

Absolutely ridiculous.

Five makes his way home after hanging out with his best friend, Y/N, at Griddy’s. They had been friends for awhile; in secret, of course. He would never let any of his other siblings embarrass him in front of her. They’ve been friends for about a year now, meeting when he saved her from being robbed by a drunk man. And now, the two are practically inseparable.

It’s strange to see the two of them together, considering the fact that they are indeed polar opposites. While he enjoys fighting bad guys and drinking black coffee on a daily, Y/N would rather read a book or go outside. However, the one thing that keeps their friendship would be that their IQ is almost identical. So you can only imagine that their conversations are rather fun.

But why is Five so upset now? You might be asking.

Because he’s in love with her.

Thinking of the thought again, he groans, covering his head with a pillow. Five hated the idea of relationships, he always did. Seeing Luther and Allison together had made him sick to his stomach half the time. However, now it doesn’t seem so bad...

“I don’t love her. I don’t.” He tells himself over and over again, but was interrupted by Klaus coming into his room completely uninvited.

“You don’t love who?” Klaus asks, a knowing smile on his face. Turning red, Five pushes him out, ignoring Klaus’ giggles.

“Now where was I?” He continued. “I love her. I- oh shit.”

——————————————————————————

“Come in.” Luther permitted. He was surprised to see Five standing there. Mainly surprised that he didn’t use his powers to barge in like he usually did.

However, he and the others have noticed small changes in him. Ever since a couple months ago, he’s been more...happy. He’ll spend his days outside of the academy and come home super late, despite Reginald’s countless scolds. He smiles a lot more often and even said thank you when Diego poured him a cup of coffee one time! Something was up, that’s for sure.

“Oh, hey Five.” He greeted awkwardly, rising from his chair. “What’s up?”

“How did you know that you loved Allison?” Five stated bluntly, not realizing it made the boy in front of him go red. After a moment of silence, Luther spoke again.

“Well....uh, you start to notice their little nervous habits.”

“Are you okay, Y/N?” Five asked, watching as the girl fidgeted with the end of her skirt a lot faster. She seemed more relaxed at the sound of his voice.

“Yeah, yeah...sorry, I just really hate loud noises.” She responded, smiling at him. He nodded and continued drinking his coffee.

“And it’s like every touch that they give you takes you breath away, you know?”

“Ow! Shit!” Five exclaimed. Y/N looked in his direction for a moment to notice a paper cut on his finger. She giggled.

“You know for someone who almost got stabbed last Wednesday I didn’t think you would react like that to a tiny little papercut.” Y/N jokes, going closer to him to inspect the injury. Five’s breath hitches once he feels her warm hand on his, trying to draw the blood away. Once she does, she still notices his stare on her. “Five? You good?”

He snaps out of his trance, blinking a few times before answering. “Fine.”

“Whenever you’re with her, you can feel yourself getting happier just by her existing.”

“Hi!” Y/N calls, waving at Five. “Welcome to my humble abode. My parents aren’t home, so I can show you around! Come on!” She grabs his hand, rushing the boy to her room upstairs.

As she goes on about her comic book collection, he can’t help but smile. She was really cute when she rambled, her eyes sparkling because she just was just so passionate about basically everything.

He loved that about her.

“And yeah, that’s kind of when I knew.” Luther finished, clearing his throat. “Why...”

But it’s too late because he has already teleported away.

——————————————————————————

“Woah!” Y/N gasps as she sees Five suddenly appearing in her room. “You’re really early! We’re supposed to meet in about 3 hours. Do you want some tea?”

He goes in front of her, softly grabbing the girls delicate shoulders. She looks at him confused, but slowly starts to redden when she notices her face just inches away from his. Five gazes down to her lips for a moment before going back to her eyes.

“This might sound weird but can I kiss you?” he asked, already feeling embarrassed. As Five is about to dismiss himself, he’s stopped by soft lips coming on onto his.

He hesitates, eyes widening and closing repeatedly just to see if he’s dreaming. After a few moments, Five feels himself melt into it, his hands sliding shakily to her waist.

She pulls away first, leaning her forehead on his, smiling brightly with closed eyes.

“God, I love you.” She mumbled, barely audible for him to hear.

But he did. “I love you too.”

——————————————————————————

Damn I’m proud. Part 2? Jsushjshs 💕

#five #five hargreeves #five hargreeves imagine #the umbrella academy #tua #umbrella academy #tua five #five tua #five hargreeves x you #five hargreeves x reader #five hargreeves x y/n #number five

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feralnumberfive · 3 years ago

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The Rewatch Academy: Episode 2 of Season 1

“Run Boy Run”

I am in no way a good analyst so my little analysis and speculations probably sound a bit goofy or pretty wild and probably mean nothing at all. Everything I put into this post about each episode is purely what I noticed or thought, whether it's funny or serious. I will be making jokes, so please just leave it at that (in no way am I trying to make fun of an actor and or character!) I am also in no way saying I noticed this stuff first. This is just what I noticed while rewatching these episodes

☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂

1x01 | 1x02 | 1x03 | 1x04

☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂

☂ Ben is a tired boy leaning on his chair

☂ Luther and Allison please stop making googly eyes at each other

☂ Five really woke up and chose violence that day huh

☂ Diego already knows shit is about to go down and it’s so funny

☂ I love that Reginald doesn’t even scold Five for stabbing the table

☂ Five: “I have a question.” blah blah blah Veggie is talking Five: “I want to time travel.” That’s not a question, Five

☂ It’s interesting to see young Five blinking/jumping compared to older Five. Even at this age, 13, he says that he’s still practicing his spatial jumps. Young Five needs to clench his fists and almost squeeze his eyes shut just to concentrate. Older Five simply just teleports without effort and is able to casually blink even as he’s just walking. Five probably practiced teleporting a lot in the apocalypse

☂ Someone else pointed this out, but all of the other Umbrellas are frozen for a for a second as Five teleports next to Reginald. While that freeze is just editing, and possibly a small error, this is another example of how Five’s spatial teleporting doesn’t make a noise. Luther, Diego, and Allison only look at Five when he begins talking to Reginald. Grace notices Five right away because he is in her line of sight while Luther and Diego were looking at where Five was sitting and Allison had her head down eating

☂ “The effects it might have on your body, even your mind, are far too unpredictable.” Harsh foreshadowing

☂ The “Run Boy Run” scene is one of the best musical moments in all of the show. It gave me chills when I first heard it, and the fact that all of the lyrics that play during that part match so perfectly with it make it even better. Tomorrow is another day being sung as Five travels into 2019 is just too good

☂ Imagine how scared you have to be to call out to your p.o.s father

☂ The instant regret immediately falls onto his face and he kneels in front of the Academy

☂ I love how in the first few episodes Five’s hair is styled exactly as it was when he was an old man and when he was actually 13. Over the rest of the season and the second season it just gets more disheveled and floppier

☂ “You think I didn’t try everything to get back to my family?” Ahhhh there we go, one of my favorite Five lines. This here is probably when I truly fell in love with his character. He spent 45 years just trying to survive and attempting to get back to his family. He would have spent more too if the Handler hadn’t taken him in

☂ Vanya is genuinely trying to understand what happened and Five was being a little asshole. C’mon, bud, she’s just confused and hasn’t seen you in forever

☂ This Five and Vanya scene melts my heart (simply as a sibling relationship!!) She doesn’t care anymore if she understands, she just wants him to stay because she hasn’t seen him in a while. Even Five understands that as his demeanor quickly changes from being frustrated to gently telling her “Night.” He watches her as she leaves, also partially realizing that he hasn’t seen her in a while too

☂ Why didn’t Five just teleport outside of Vanya’s apartment?? That would have been the stealthiest thing

☂ “All quick and efficient skills.” A little note on Five’s level of skill of slaughtering the Commission agents in Griddy’s

☂ Diego said he bought his police badge on Ebay, so computers do exist in the UA universe

☂ “By the way, this thing might look like a botched robbery, but my gut’s telling me something else is going on here.” Yeah, and that something else is your brother

☂ I want Claire to meet her uncles and aunt so bad

☂ So Ben has a ghostly puzzle book and pen he can use? Because if they were real Pogo would have been able to see them just floating in the air. What other ghostly items can Ben summon? (I believe this is more so just an error but it’s fun to think about)

☂ “I-I found it at a playground, actually. Must have just *click* popped out.” An underrated Five line

☂ Five immediately becomes aggressive at the thought of losing the eye, something he found clutched in the hand of his dead brother and was a clue to what caused the death of his siblings��and the end of the world

☂ Just now noticed that you can see Diego up on the second floor being led down to where Patch is in the police station

☂ I really like that they added in the little tidbit about a cold case Five created 81 years ago

☂ I miss Patch. She deserved better and more screen time

☂ Hey, Diego might have been thrown out of the Police Academy but at least he’s still in The Umbrella Academy!

☂ Hearing Patch talk to Diego really made me realize that the Umbrellas weren’t even necessary for helping with crime. It was just Reginald’s way of training them

☂ Love the shot of Luther looking at Diego’s cross-stitch and the camera lining it up so it’s like he’s wearing the mask

☂ Five lying just to keep Vanya away and to continue on with his goal hurts. His goal is saving the world and his family, but I don’t think he actually took in what Vanya was saying to him or maybe he recognized the offer but shoved all of his feelings down. She was reaching out to actually get him some help and he lied to her to avoid that. Maybe he doesn’t care and is just blinded by his ultimate goal. Save the world and family first, then process your feelings and genuinely communicate with your siblings

☂ Don’t worry Klaus, I would have let you wear that outfit

☂ When Cha-Cha questions “Five” aka the poor tow truck guy, she asks him about “The London job in ‘66.” I believe she is referring to the Shepherd’s Bush murders where three policemen were murdered

☂ Hazel replying “Not from what I’ve heard.” when Cha-Cha asks if he thinks Five is a whimperer shows that Five definitely had a reputation in the Commission for probably being a cold and stoic guy

☂ Vanya is just trying to help, chill Allison 😭. You haven’t seen her in years, what do you know about her?

☂ Klaus would really slap his brother in the face to get drug money

☂ Another example of Five not making noise when he teleports is when he blinks into the taxi and Klaus didn’t notice that he had left until he turned to look where Five was. On the other hand though the taxi driver does jump as Five suddenly appears in the car. However, I believe that might be from the driver noticing Five in a mirror in the car

☂ I wonder what languages the Hargreeves siblings know. Vanya didn’t understand Leonard’s German. You think Reginald would have taught them multiple languages or maybe she forgot it if she was taught it

☂ I don’t know why but Luther just siting there and reading a book and almost getting hit by the knife is really funny to me

☂ Yeah Diego doesn’t have to prove his innocence, but it would have saved a lot of trouble

☂ Rewatching the scene with Leonard talking to Vanya about his father is just disturbing when you already know what happened to him and how he’s lying just to try to be more relatable

☂ I heard a rumor that smoking is bad for you ❌

☂ Vanya calling to make sure Allison is okay even though she hurt her makes me sad. She’s so nice and thoughtful

☂ The old man can’t even reunite with his wife before he gets hunted down

☂ The shot of Hazel and Cha-Cha putting on their masks in the dark with the music is 👌👌

☂ Again, Cha-Cha isn’t able to hear Five as he teleports next to her and slices her arm. She might not have noticed him though because he was very quick to attack her

☂ Five really went through all of that just to bring his wife home

☂ I think it’s an easily blocked out part because we already know what Allison has to say and it’s exciting, but Luther is apologizing about accusing Diego and causing issues amongst his siblings

☂ Five is just so defeated and emotionally tired that he doesn’t allow Luther to touch him. In fact, he very quickly and aggressively grabs Luther’s wrist. You can tell Five is a little out of it and I believe it was more so his subconscious stopping Luther. Five doesn’t want help, he’s going to carry the burden of figuring out who ended the world and killed his family as far as he can by himself

☂ “There’s nothing you can do. There’s nothing any of you can do.” Are such heavy lines. Five is so emotionally and mentally tired at the end of the day and he sounds like he’s about to breakdown. He’s replaying the moment he found his siblings’ corpses. They weren’t able to stop the person who ended the world. Luther is offering his help, but Five is denying it. Luther couldn’t stop the person who ended the world. None of his siblings were able to stop that person. He’s telling himself that they can’t help and he’s telling Luther and Allison that too. Five wants to be alone to figure out who this person is. His siblings can’t help him

☂ Five coming across the corpses of his siblings is just heartbreaking. He first stumbles across three adults lying in the rubble. One of them is holding an eye. He goes to shake the man in all black, having a tiny bit hope that miraculously he is still alive. He stumbles across another body only to back away with tears in his eyes as he spots the tattoo on the man’s arm and realizes who these people are

☂☂☂☂☂☂☂

Feel free to comment or reblog with things you have noticed too!

#the rewatch academy #tra #tua #the umbrella academy #umbrella academy #1x02 #run boy run #luther hargreeves #diego hargreeves #allison hargreeves #klaus hargreeves #number five #five hargreeves #ben hargreeves #vanya hargreeves #hargreeves siblings #leonard peabody

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thisisawonderfulusername · 4 years ago

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let’s save the world

season one, episode ten

five hargreeves x reader

summary: the end of the world is back on, and it’s your job to stop it.

trigger warnings: cursing, violence

word count: 4k

a/n: final episode of season one! i have decided that i will be continuing into season two because i have so many ideas for it and i want to share them :) hope you enjoy this part! also, i think you know this by now, but the italic bits are flashbacks

as you jumped again you see nothing but fire and rubble, the once beautiful streets destroyed. the next moment, you realize five isn’t next to you like he was just seconds ago. your heart dropped to your stomach

what did you guys do?

you turn slowly in a circle, examining the unrecognizable terrain of fallen buildings, ash floating through the air from the fires that blazed on top of the debris.

you shout for five, beginning to walk on shaky legs to hopefully find him nearby. you find a paper lying on the ground, and you pick it up, reading the headline and shaking your head at it, not wanting to believe what it said. you throw it to the side, yelling once again for five.

after a few shouts with no reply, you let out a shaky breath, falling to your knees and feeling the wreckage poke at your legs. when it really sinks in that you’re all alone here, not even knowing where here is, you scream.

you scream until your throat is scratchy and tears run down your face, your chest rising and falling rapidly from your short breaths.

the newspaper from the day you got stuck in the apocalypse. there was no difference in what it said.

you stare at it in shock, letting out a shaky breath. there was no way. you guys killed harold jenkins, the target is dead. the man who ends the world is dead, so why is the headline the same?

“y/n?” five stands from his stool, quickly moving past the counter to see what had you so shocked. “what’s wrong?”

your heart was starting to race, and all the memories came back to you. the buildings turned to ash and rubble, the fire burning everywhere. that can’t happen again. you hold the newspaper out to five, trying to calm yourself. “we-” you take in a sharp breath, “we need to get back to the academy. now.”

he looks at the paper, his eyes widening slightly. “shit.”

he grabs your hand not even a second later, and you appear in front of the academy- what was the academy. it was rubble now, just like it was when you got stuck in the future.

the both of you quickly move to get over the rubble, and you hear five let out a sigh of relief when he sees that his siblings are alive. “guys.” he calls out, getting over to where they stood as fast as possible. “this is it. the apocalypse is still on, the world ends today.”

they all look at you two as you stand there, catching your breath as you try to keep yourself from panicking, wringing your hands together. “i thought you said that was over,” luther mentions, taking a few steps towards you.

“we were wrong, okay?” you tell them, grabbing the newspaper from five, “this is the newspaper from the day we got stuck in the future- the headline’s the same, it hasn’t changed.” you wave the paper in the air, noticing that your hands had started to shake.

diego shakes his head, “no, that doesn’t mean anything.” he denies, “time could’ve been altered since that came out this morning.”

“you’re not listening,” five’s says in irritation, “i assumed this place came down with everything else. but here we are. the moon’s still shining, everything’s still in one piece,” he motions around you all, “but not the academy.”

klaus steps forward, snatching the paper from you to look at it himself, muttering something about being confused. “then listen, you idiot.” you seethe, looking around at the fallen building, “vanya destroys the academy before the apocalypse. we thought jenkins was the cause, but it turns out he was only what set off the bomb that is vanya.” you hear helicopters above, getting closer, as well as the sirens of emergency services. “vanya causes the apocalypse.”

luther stares with wide eyes, “we have to find her.”

a bright light shines over all of you, and you cover your eyes to block the rays. “we’ve gotta get out of here,” diego stands from where he was sitting on a pile of rubble, glancing at where the light was coming from. “regroup at the super star!”

everyone starts to make their way over the rubble as quickly as possible, and you grab five’s hand as he jumps away, and you crouch down to catch your breath when you land in the bowling alley. while you were waiting for the others, you look up at five. “okay, if we die, i just want you to know-”

"we won’t die.” he cuts you off, and you force a smile at his determination. you hoped he was right, but you could never be sure.

looking to the door as everyone else walks in, you nod, standing back up straight. “alright. we won’t die.” you run your fingers through your hair, sighing as the others meet up with you all.

you all got a lane so you wouldn’t be kicked out or questioned for just hanging around, sitting around on the seats. the sounds of the balls rolling down the polished lanes and knocking the pins down filled the air, and luther spoke up. “i hate to say this, but everyone needs to prepare.”

“for what?” diego questions.

“to do whatever it takes to stop vanya.” he responds simply, getting hit in the chest with the notepad that allison had been carrying around to write whatever she had to say. he sighs, “we may not have a choice, allison.” he tells her in frustration.

“bullshit,” diego argues, his leg bouncing up and down, “there’s always options.”

you didn’t want to cause a fight in the family, but you didn’t have time to sit around to figure this out. “yeah? like what?” you ask, raising an eyebrow at him.

shaking his head, diego looks away. “i don’t know.”

“look, whatever we decide, we have to find vanya,” luther stands from his seat, shrugging slightly, “and we have to do it fast. she could be anywhere.”

you nod, “or... here?” you turn towards klaus as he speaks, your eyebrows furrowing in confusion, moving to look at the paper as he shows one of the pages. seeing a picture of vanya in one of the advertisement boxes, you grin. her concert.

“hello,” you all turn to look at the woman who walked over, an awkward smile on her face. “i hate to intrude, but my manager says if you’re not going to bowl, you'll have to leave.” she shrugs before walking back to the counter, where a particularly grumpy man stood.

rolling your eyes, you stand from you seat, grabbing one of the bowling balls and carelessly tossing it down the lane, looking to the manager and sending him a mocking smile before sitting back down.

allison writes something on her notepad, showing all of you and tapping on the paper. she’s our sister.

luther shakes his head, “we’re the only ones capable of stopping this.” he tells her, “we have a responsibility to dad.”

“to dad?” diego looks at him in irritation, “no, i’ve heard enough about-”

“he sacrificed everything to bring us back together.” luther argues back, and you sigh at how often they fight.

five looks between them, “i’m with luther on this one.” he looks to everyone else, “we can’t give her a chance to fight back. there are billions of lives at stake, we’re past trying to save one.”

klaus looks around, “hey guys, maybe i could help...”

“now’s not the time-”

diego cuts luther off, “no, let him finish.” when he looks at him in confusion, he defends him, “he saved my life today.”

klaus looks to his side, “yeah, yeah i did... take credit for it.” he nods, “in fact, the real hero,” he pauses for a moment, “was ben.” everyone looks at him, clearly not believing what he was saying. how could you? as far as you knew, he could only communicate with the dead. “today- listen. today, he punched me in the face! and earlier, he was the one who saved diego, not me.”

“you are unbelievable, klaus.” luther scoffs.

“look, you want proof?” he picks up one of the bowling balls, “i’ll give you proof.” he looks past five, and you follow his gaze to... absolutely nothing. “okay, ready?” he breathes, “catch.” he tosses the ball, and five quickly moves to the side out of the way, and you all watch as the ball hits the ground, bouncing a few times before rolling away.

you sigh softly, and luther looks at him in annoyance. “is there any way to silence that voice in your head that screams out to be the center of attention?”

“you know, i liked you a lot better before you got laid.” klaus tells him with a glare, and the monkey man’s eyes widen at the exclamation, and klaus quickly tries to fix it when he sees allison’s look of surprise. “it wasn’t his fault, though, because he was ridiculously high! and the girl- she thought he was a furry-” luther hisses at him to stop, and he nods, looking away.

you watch as allison walks away with luther following, rolling your eyes. your attention is caught by a woman walking over with a kid next to her, “excuse me, it’s my son kenny’s birthday today, and, uh, wouldn’t your son and his little girlfriend have more fun with kids their own age?”

snorting, you look to the side, nearly choking on air as you hold back from laughing too hard. “i would rather chew off my own foot.” you hear five seethe, and you almost fall over from the laugh you let out, seeing the woman’s eyes widen before she quickly lead her son away.

when five stands from his seat and starts walking away to another lane, you quickly get up to follow, catching your breath from your laughing fit as you watch him flip open a part of the machine the balls come back to, your laughter immediately ceasing when you see the canister, labeled as ‘number five.’ “well, shit.” you breathe, holding a hand over your stomach which was sore as if you just did one hundred sit ups.

“how did she find us?” he questions no one in particular, before he starts to dig through his pockets, sighing when he pulled out a few of the candies that she had offered when you guys were back at the commission.

you purse your lips as he opens one of the candies, revealing a tracker. “she’s good.” you commend quietly, nodding your head.

when he opens the canister and dumps the message out, it’s in a fortune cookie, and you furrow your eyebrows as you watch him crack it open.

rain quail, room twelve

he sighs, shaking his head. “i’ll go see what she wants, you stay here and make sure the idiots don’t do anything stupid.”

“wait, are you-” before you can finish, he had disappeared, and you sigh softly, grabbing the open receptacle and screwing the cap back on, sticking it back where it came from before going back to join the others at the lane.

luther and allison come back at the same time as you, and the big man looks confused as he stops behind some of the seats. “where did five go?”

you sigh, shaking your head, “he left. we don’t need to wait around.”

luther glances around, “alright, concert starts in thirty minutes.”

“okay, so what’s the plan?” diego questions him, and he stumbles for words for a moment.

“well,” he starts, pursing his lips as he thinks, “we should go to icarus theater.”

diego looks at him deadpan, “that’s a location, not a plan.” the other shakes his head slightly, his mouth open but not saying anything. “that’s all you got?” he asks, stepping closer to him, “look, you want to be number one? fine. but you have to get us all on the same page because right now, we’re a mess.”

“he’s right.” you nod your head towards diego, bouncing on your toes for a second, “we need a plan. and we need one now, because the end of the world isn’t so far away.”

before he says anything else, there’s sudden rapid gunfire and you all duck behind the various racks of balls. the party of kids and their parents scream, doing their best to get under cover, and you sneak a glance at who it was.

there were at least ten people, masks over their faces with machine guns firing without mercy. people from the commission, no doubt. you curse under your breath, and diego pops up to throw a knife at one of the men, who stumbles into the sound system, the lights turning off and being replaced with neon colors, music playing over the speakers.

“alright.” you mumble to yourself, taking one more look to see where all of them were, before quickly moving to another rack, closer to a small group of them all. you jump onto one of the guys’ back, your hands igniting with fire and lighting him up. you hear his scream, muffled by the mask he wore as you grab the gun he dropped, shooting the other two men with him.

“the lanes!” you hear luther shout over the chaos, and you look over to see them running down the bowling lanes, bullets flying past them. you quickly sprint across the floor, nearly slipping from the polish on the wooden lanes, but you manage to keep your balance, getting to the end of the lane and sliding through the pins, turning to shoot at a few of the men through the hole before throwing the gun to the side and following the others out of the building.

you all ran into the theater, going up the stairs as quick as you could. as you were about to go in, you turn to see that allison had stopped luther, and you sigh heavily, catching your breath.

he looks at her, “allison, you know i can’t do that, she’s beyond reasoning.” he tries to move forward again, but is once again stopped. “do you honestly think she’s gonna listen?”

you tap your foot against the floor, crossing your arms over your chest. “we don’t have time for this, guys.” you raise your voice slightly, your heart beat growing quicker with every second that passes where you haven’t stopped vanya.

looking at her for a second, he nods. “okay.”

allison turns on her heel and quickly runs into the auditorium, and you all stand back. “you’re using her as a distraction, aren’t you?” diego asks luther.

“it’s our best chance to incapacitate vanya.” he reasons, and for once, you actually agree with what he’s doing. when he let her go and do as she wanted, you were ready to run in and do it yourself, but at least he had some sort of plan. “she’ll thank us later.” he sighs.

you follow them as they move to find their way backstage, telling klaus to be lookout- which you felt bad for, but you technically did need it. those men would probably be here in no less than ten minutes, and you needed to know when they did.

you found your way backstage, luther at the right side with you and diego on the other, preparing to run out. when luther made the move, all of you ran out to get her and hopefully manage to knock her out or something to make sure she couldn’t use her powers.

before you got close enough to do anything, she had seen you. she stood from her chair, her skin paler than usual and her eyes icy. she cut her bow through the air swiftly, and all three of you are pushed back from the force, landing in the audience.

you landed on the back, the air being knocked out of you, and you cough a few times as you take heavy breaths. all around you, people from the audience were screaming and running from the room, trying to get out as quickly as possible. the orchestra continued to play.

it wasn’t too long later that the auditorium was completely empty, and the four of you sat behind the rows of seats, yelling over the music to figure out what to do.

you didn’t have enough time to come up with something, as the men who you had expected came back, firing into the rows of seats and the walkways between them. you groan softly, counting in your head.

“what’s with all the lollygagging?” you look up into the walkway next to you to see five, and you quickly grab his arm to pull him behind the seats.

“are you trying to get shot?” you yell at him, and he ducks as more shots are fired.

he looks around, “i thought they would take a bit longer to get here!” he shouts back, and you roll your eyes, glancing up.

“you take out the guys coming down the aisle- i’ll get them.” you point to the small group of guys making their way down the rows of seats on the other side, and he nods, jumping to take out them as you rushed past the seats.

when you got to the other side, they had their backs turned to you, continuing their fire on the seats . “you’re making this way too easy.” you mumble, sweeping your foot under one of the guys’ legs to knock him down before snatching the gun he held, shooting him and his little buddies.

klaus comes running into the hall and when you look over to shoot some more guys overhead, you see the ghostly figure that slowly appeared before tentacles grew out of him, taking out all of the guys with ease.

you watch as he takes everyone out, slightly shocked, before you run to meet up with all of them in the middle of one of the aisles, ready to take down vanya now that the men in your way were taken care of.

“alright, you go stage left,” luther tells diego, “i’ll go right. you three go from the front.” you all nod and move to get into position.

you crouched behind the front row in the middle of the seats, five and klaus on either ends of the seats, and as luther shouts for everyone to go, you hop over the seat and sprint towards the stage with the rest of them.

just as you get to her again, with another swipe of her bow, you’re suspended in the air, gasping for air. you manage to turn your head and see the others in the same position as you, vanya somehow holding all of you in the air and slowly squeezing the life out of you.

your vision starts to blur, but you see allison standing behind vanya, holding a gun to the back of her head with tears running down her face. just as you’re about to pass out, she points the gun to the back of the room and shoots, causing vanya to drop all of you to the floor.

the glass of the skylight above you all shatters as her power is directed towards it, and you catch your breath as you look up and see her fall to the ground. all of you run up onto the stage, making sure that she was alive.

“we did it,” luther breathes out, and you let out a breathy chuckle from the realization. “we saved the world.”

as you sit on the stage, catching your breath, klaus stands up, looking out of the broken window. “guys,” he trails off slightly, pointing out. you look up and see what he’s looking at- the moon, breaking apart in the sky. your eyes widen, “see that big moon rock coming towards us?”

“so much for saving the world.” you mutter, holding your face in your hands as you sigh. “it was great while it lasted.” you chuckle bitterly, shaking your head as you look back up to see the end of the world hurtling towards you in the form of a piece of the moon.

five paces for a moment as the siblings talk, before speaking up. “this doesn’t have to be the end.” he states, turning to look at everyone as they turn to him in confusion, “i think i have a way out of here, but you have to trust me on it.”

they all shake their heads, all deciding that it probably wasn’t the best thing to trust him on it.

standing slowly, you sigh. “are you thinking what i think you are?” you ask, raising an eyebrow in his direction, and he shrugs.

“in less than a minute we’re going to be vaporized. we have to try something.” his siblings turn to look at him, waiting for him to explain his idea. “we use my ability to time travel, and i’ll take you all with me.”

glancing at each other, the men nod, “what’s the worst thing that can happen?” diego shrugs.

“well, we’re fifty-eight, looking like children, so there’s that to think about.” you chuckle, shaking your head.

they all look around for a moment, after a moment all agreeing.

“okay great, luther, grab vanya.” five instructs, and you’re already standing next to him, grabbing his hand in preparation for whatever was about to happen. the others gather around, holding onto each other.

as he picks her up, luther looks at woman who had passed out. “should we be taking her?” he questions, “i mean, she’s the cause, isn’t that like taking a bomb with us?”

“she’ll always cause the apocalypse.” you tilt your head to either side to pop your neck, “unless we try to take her back with us and fix her.”

they all nod, gathering together without saying anything else. five looks up as he focuses on traveling back in time, and a temporal anomaly, much like the one you came out of eight days ago, grows above you all.

“it’s working!” you hear luther yell over the deafening sound of the anomaly growing, hissing and crackling as electricity would.

“hold on!” five yells, holding onto your hand tighter, “it’s going to get messy!”

as you look around at the others, you see their younger selves, and you wonder if the same thing will happen to them, before a large flash blinds you.

suddenly, you’re falling out of the sky.

taglists

main: @horrorklaus

tua: @rasberrymay @noodlextrash

five: @anapocalypseinmymind @five-hargreeves-official @insatiable-ivy @coffee-e-addict @xplrreylo @fandomfreakff @colie-babi

lstw: @aspiringwriter1 @thetrashypanda423 @lilacs-lavender @wow-lookit-all-the-fandoms @ohmyitsfaith @xplrreylo @fandomfreakff @onedollarduck @sleepygal124 @faith-quake @stripedchickens @youcandalekmyballs @pettyjayy @libidinexx @bts-chub @theoriginalkat @flowertoty

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calwrites · 4 years ago

Text

The Illusion (part 1)

Summary: Reader has tried her hardest to keep the rest of the BAU from learning about her past. When her father dies and she has to go home, her secrets might come out.

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Umbrella Academy!Reader

Warnings: none

Word Count: 4.8k

This is kind of a crazy, stupid idea, but I’ve read a couple fics where the reader is like an Avenger or a vampire and the team finds out and I think they’re really fun, so I decided to give it a try. Part 2 will come out in a few days probably. I’m trying to decide how far into the show to go.

--------------------------

“Well I don’t know about you guys, but I am so ready to go home,” Derek groaned. The rest of the team echoed his sentiment as you all followed him into the small town police station that you had been in way too much this past week. You were more than ready to get back to your apartment and not talk to anyone until Monday.

In the back of your mind, you knew that Allison’s new movie had just come out. She had probably been getting ready for the premiere as you were tackling the unsub. Still, you should probably see the movie this weekend, while you had some free time without a case. Even though the premise didn’t exactly entice you, you should at least see it so you could text her about how good she was in it. It had been too long since you had talked to your sister. A few texts after the news of her divorce broke and some empty promises to hang out soon, but you hadn’t had a real conversation with her in over a year. It had been a lot longer since you had talked to the rest of your siblings, with the exception of Diego, who would appear occasionally to ask for your help in whatever “case” he was working. You had learned that it was easier to help him find whatever information he was looking for and then send him on his way. He was less likely to break into your apartment or try to hack your work computer that way.

Still, it would be nice to see Allison again, even if it was just on a screen. Your eyes flicked to Spencer before you could stop them. He invited you to so many niche events that maybe he wouldn’t question why you wanted to see the new Allison Hargreeves movie so badly or why you invited him.

You weren’t really sure if you two had been on any actual dates or if you were just two friends hanging out. He always had some reason why he was inviting you specifically. You knew Russian, so he wouldn’t have to translate the movie for you. You knew Roman comedy, so the two of you could discuss whether the performance was historically accurate. You knew Japanese art history, so you could carry out a conversation about the new exhibit. None of those reasons stopped the crush that you had on Spencer Reid.

But you couldn’t say anything. Besides the fact that he was your coworker, you couldn’t risk him getting dragged into any family drama. None of your coworkers knew about your family. As far as anyone was aware, you didn’t have a good relationship with your family, and you certainly didn’t like to talk about them. They probably had their own theories about why. What had your family done that made you not flinch when cases took a turn like this last one did? Why weren’t you surprised that a father could kill his child and then pretend to be the picture of grief? Because as far as you were concerned, your father had killed two of his children and had killed everything good about the other six.

These thoughts ran silently through your head as you helped the team pack everything up. Soon, you would be on the jet, heading back to DC. And tomorrow, you would see your sister’s new movie. Hopefully, with Spencer.

A noise from the TV in the corner of the station shook you out of your thoughts. Breaking news, apparently. You turned back to the papers you were organizing, prepared to ignore whatever celebrity cheating scandal they were about to break.

“...the death of the world’s most eccentric and reclusive billionaire…”

The words made your breath catch. There was only one person they could be talking about. You made yourself look at the TV. Staring back at you was your father’s face. Or a picture of it, at least. Though really, you saw pictures of your father more than you had ever actually seen your father in person.

“Wow.” JJ’s voice beside you startled you a bit. “Reginald Hargreeves. I haven’t thought about him in forever.”

“I can’t believe he died. I kind of assumed he would live forever,” Emily said from your other side. It seemed the TV had caught everyone’s attention. “I mean, he was a crazy billionaire. Aren’t they supposed to find the secret to eternal life?”

“Y/N, are you okay?” You met Spencer’s kind eyes, but couldn’t find any words for a few seconds. Finally, you managed a smile.

“Of course. It’s just kind of shocking, I guess. Why?”

“You’re rubbing your arm. You do that when you’re upset.” You hadn’t even realized that you were doing it again. Had you always done it? You must have, if Spencer had noticed.

You could still remember the first time. It was a few days after you had gotten the stupid tattoo. Your skin was still sore, but you had scrubbed and scrubbed, trying to get the tattoo to wash off, until your skin was red and raw. You knew it wouldn’t wash off. You knew, yet you tried constantly. Even now, apparently. Now your father was dead and you would still have that stupid tattoo that marked you as one of his. As one of the Umbrella Academy kids. A freak. A soldier. A pawn.

Shaking your head a bit to clear your thoughts, you looked at Spencer. “I think I’m just ready to be home. It’s been a long case, and this is weird news to get at the end of it. I’m just tired.”

You weren’t sure if Spencer believed you, but he nodded and didn’t question it. The team continued packing up in silence. It wasn’t until you were back on the jet that anyone brought it up again.

“So who was your favorite Umbrella Academy kid?” Derek asked, breaking the silence of the jet.

“Let me guess, yours was Spaceboy. You wanted to be super strong like him,” Emily teased lightly.

“For your information, my favorite was The Kraken. If he was that good with knives, imagine how good he would be throwing a football,” Derek corrected her, an easy smile on his face. How strange that everyone else could talk so casually about them. Of course, as far your team was concerned, they were just names and faces from TV or trading cards. They weren’t real people.

“Well I wanted to be The Rumor. Imagine how much easier sneaking out would be if you could just tell your parents to let you go.” Emily laughed as she said it. She didn’t understand how easy it was to get caught up in that power. You had seen it happen, though.

“I always liked The Illusion. I mean, making people see whatever you wanted them to would be so cool. Plus, reading minds would be helpful. It would make interrogations go a lot quicker.” It was only because of years of practice that you didn’t react to JJ’s words. The rest of the team began discussing how helpful it would be to be able to read an unsub’s mind. Not that you would know. You refused to do it.

“Project your consciousness into their brain. Know their thoughts. See what they see.”

Those words were some of your earliest memories. You would stand across from one of your siblings, reading their thoughts, seeing through their eyes, hearing through their ears, feeling what they felt, while your father kept repeating those words. That was before you had realized the true extent of your powers.

“Y/N, who was your favorite?” You blinked in surprise at Derek’s question. Everyone’s eyes were on you.

“It changed, I guess.” It was a lame answer, but they accepted it and continued to argue amongst themselves about who was the best. It was the truth, though. You had always been close with Allison. That had never changed. The girls had to stick together. You guessed that you were probably close to Vanya when you were younger, but you saw her less and less as you got older and training began to occupy more of your time. You certainly weren’t close to her now. Not after what she had written about you.

You and Five had been close for a time. Both of you were desperate to prove to your father that you were more powerful than he thought. That you weren’t worthless just because you were on the lower half of the rankings. But then Five had disappeared, and you discovered a new aspect of your powers.

It was because of Luther. A few weeks had passed since Five’s disappearance, and Luther, in a horrible attempt to “be a leader” and “boost morale” had said that Five brought the disappearance on himself because he hadn’t listened when Dad told him not to try time travelling. Something in you had snapped. You wanted Luther to experience what you had imagined Five did. Lost in darkness, unsure of where or when you were. Just an expanse of nothingness.

You didn’t even know you were doing it at first, but Luther started to scream. It was over as quick as it began, thanks to the shock of Luther’s yell. He shivered as he explained that suddenly he couldn’t see, hear, or feel anything. It was like nothingness. Luther never quite forgave you for that, but you would never forget the joyful look in your father’s eyes as he realized that it was your doing. That not only could you tap into another person’s brain. You could manipulate it.

But it was harder to control. And after you accidentally left one criminal permanently blind, you were scared of your powers. Klaus and Ben understood how you felt, and the three of you became inseparable. Even after Ben died, that didn’t change. None of your siblings knew that Ben was still around, but you did. Klaus would let you use his eyes and ears so that you could talk to Ben. You missed them. Klaus would show up at your apartment sometimes, looking for money. You would get him to stay for a few days and take some time off work so you could watch him. The three of you would hang out like old times. But eventually you would have to go back to work, and you would come back to find an empty apartment and missing cash.

Despite the fact that Diego was the one you talked to most often now, you two hadn’t gotten along as children. There were rare times when you would click, but for the most part it was constant bickering. You two were too much alike. Quick to anger and slow to forgive.

You were stuck in these memories for the rest of the flight. No one said anything about your silence, but you did feel Spencer’s gaze on you often. You continued to rub your arm, like you would be able to rub off the tattoo that was always covered by your sleeve.

Most of the team left the office pretty quickly once you arrived back in DC. They dropped off whatever needed to be dropped off, then headed home. You lingered, wanting to catch Hotch alone. It would be easier if there was no one around to question what you needed to talk to him about.

“Do you want me to wait up, Y/N? We can take the metro back together.” You smiled genuinely at Spencer’s question. The two of you lived close to each other, so you often left together, either carpooling or taking the metro together.

“No, it’s fine. I need to talk to Hotch before I leave. I’ll see you soon.” Spencer gave you a small wave as he left. You watched him go, feeling strangely sad. How you wished you could walk out with him and ask if he wanted to go see a movie tomorrow night. It seemed so long ago when that had been your plan.

“Hotch.” You knocked on his door, waiting for his answer before opening the door. He was looking over paperwork, as usual, and barely looked up when you came in. “I was wondering if I could have a few days off.”

That made him look up, his eyes drilling into yours. “Is everything okay?”

“Yes.” No. “I just need a few days. I don’t want to be gone long. It’s my brother.” It was the same thing you said whenever Klaus or Diego showed up. You waited for Hotch’s answer, a carefully blank look on your face. There were always a few seconds where you would worry that he had somehow figured out who you were. That the fake last name and fake childhood records weren’t enough. But they always were.

“Of course, Y/L/N. Take as much time as you need. And we’re here if you need anything.”

“Thank you, sir.” You smiled at him as you walked out of his office, though smiling was the last thing you wanted to do. Now you had no reason not to go back home. You would have to try to mourn your father. You would have to see your siblings.

--------------------------

The house looked exactly like you remembered. Big and empty. The sound of the door echoed as it closed behind you. You wondered if anyone else was here yet. You heard the steps of someone walking towards the entryway. Allison, if you had to guess, based on the footsteps.

“Y/N!” You were right. The smile that lit up your face was mirrored on Allison’s as you two rushed to hug each other. “I’ve missed you.”

“You too. I hope you don’t mind if I don’t make it to your movie this weekend.” The two of you laughed for a few seconds before remembering why you were there. “How are you doing?”

Allison shrugged and shook her head slightly. “I already lost my husband and I’m not allowed to talk to my daughter. Now my father is dead. It’s been a rough year. How are you? How’s the genius you’re almost dating?”

“I’m good. We just finished a rough case yesterday, so I’m a little bummed that I don’t get to relax this weekend. Spencer is also good. The other week we went to a shadow puppet theater festival. He said that he was glad he had a friend who was willing to go to stuff like that with him, so I don’t think he’s interested in me.”

Allison linked her arm through yours. You walked slowly through the halls, not talking. It was comforting enough just being with someone who understood what you were going through. With Allison, actions spoke louder than words.

“Is anyone else here yet?”

“Diego and Luther. I haven’t seen Klaus or Vanya. Who knows if they’ll show up.”

“Klaus will show up if he knows about it and isn’t in rehab. I wouldn’t be surprised if Vanya doesn’t show. She’s already said a lot about Dad. I don’t know if she has anything more to add.”

“You’re still mad.” It wasn’t a question, but you nodded anyway. “You know how excluded Vanya was growing up. Can you blame her?”

“That wasn’t our fault. If she wanted to tell her story, that’s fine. If she wanted to drag Dad’s name through the mud, that’s fine. He more than deserved it. She didn’t need to write about the rest of us though. I mean, my coworkers read that book. One detail that’s too specific and they could have figured out who I am. ‘So desperate to prove that she’s worthy of being called a hero that even now she devotes her life to fighting crime.’ She might as well have told everyone that I’m an FBI agent. I’ve tried so hard to build a normal life, and she could have ruined it all.”

A car pulled up outside the house as we passed by a window. You paused, watching as Vanya got out of the back. “Speak of the devil.”

Allison gave you a disapproving look. “I’m going to go see her. Coming?”

“Definitely not. I’ll see you later.” You could hear the door open and Vanya’s voice come floating up. You continued walking until you found myself outside of your father’s room. You could hear the floor creaking inside. Too heavy to be Diego. Must be Luther.

“What are you doing?” You asked as you walked into the room. Luther was standing by your dad’s bed, inspecting it. He was a lot bigger than the last time you had seen him. And his mind seemed to be screaming about why. You tried not to read his thoughts, but Luther’s head had always been a bit of an open book.

“This is where he died. Where Pogo found him.” Didn’t really explain what he was doing, but you could guess.

“No sign of a struggle.” You walked over to a window. It was locked. All of the windows were locked. “No sign of forced entry. No way someone could sneak in without Pogo or Mom knowing.”

“She’s right.” Diego entered. His eyes widened when he saw Luther. “Oh, you got big, Luther. What’s the secret, huh? Protein shakes? Low carbs?”

“What do you want?”

Diego pulled some paper from his pocket, holding it out to Luther. “The autopsy report.” Of course, being Diego, he pulled it back when Luther reached for it. Anything to rile up Luther.

“And you have this why?”

“Well, that’s because I broke into the coroner’s office. And surprise, surprise, Dad’s death was normal.”

“Y/N, he’s not allowed to do that,” Luther said, pointing an accusing finger at Diego as he looked at you. “You’re an FBI agent. Arrest him.”

“I’m not arresting my brother at Dad’s funeral. And I’m not on the clock. Grow up, Luther.” You took the report from Luther, glancing over it quickly. Heart failure. Normal. No reason to question it. But Luther would, and you didn’t want to be there when he and Diego started to fight. “I’ll leave you boys to it. I’m going to see if I can find Klaus.”

You left quickly. Where would Klaus go if he was here? You rolled your eyes when you realized the obvious answer. Dad’s office. Not only would there be valuables there, it would also be like giving the old man a giant middle finger. Typical Klaus.

Sure enough, you could hear him rummaging around the desk before you could see him. “Looking for something?” His head popped up, a grin splitting his face when he saw you. You wouldn’t stop him from taking anything, and he knew it. You didn’t need to enter his mind to know that he was high. You could see it in his eyes just as clearly as you could see the fresh rehab bracelet on his wrist. “Fresh out of rehab and already high? I don’t know how you manage it.”

“I guess I’m just incredible.” You rolled your eyes at him, but still accepted his hug with a smile.

“I know that this is hard for you, but Ben should be here. Even if the others can’t see him. He should get a chance to say goodbye.”

Klaus’s eyes were glued to the floor as he spoke. “I know.”

You didn’t get a chance to say anything else before Allison came in. It was nice, just the three of you. You three never fought. Mostly, you and Allison used to just laugh at whatever bit Klaus was doing.

“Number Three,” he was saying in a bad impression of your father’s voice when he was interrupted by Luther.

“Get out of his chair.” Of course. Perfect Number One was still so worried about following your father’s orders. Even now, he made Klaus empty his pockets as the two of you tried to leave so Luther and Allison could talk in private. But once you two were out of the room, you grinned and handed Klaus some things that you had snuck in your pockets before Luther came in. Nothing important or too valuable. It was really just a gesture to tell Klaus that you were on his side.

“And whatever is in your pants, make sure it’s nothing important before you sell it.” Being Klaus, he pretended to have no idea what you were talking about, but he shot you a wink before he wandered away.

--------------------------

You stood at the bar next to Klaus, wondering who was going to speak first. Your money was on Luther. You accepted the drink that Klaus handed you without bothering to ask what it was. Any alcohol would help you get through this.

“I guess we should get this started.” You were right. You took a seat as Luther stood up. You mostly tuned Luther out, as you always had. He was talking about scattering your father’s ashes.

“Dad had a favorite spot?” Allison asked.

“You know under the oak tree.” Everyone looked blankly at Luther. You remembered watching your father and Luther talking there when you were younger. It used to make you jealous. Now, it just made you mad. “We used to sit out there all the time. None of you ever did that?”

“No, Luther. We didn’t. He didn’t like any of us.” You gestured to the rest of your siblings as you spoke. You shouldn’t be doing this. You shouldn’t be lashing out. You were an FBI agent. Surely you were better than that. But there was something about being in this house with your siblings with the focus on your father that turned you into a child again.

And it didn’t matter whether you added fuel to the fire or not. Someone was bound to set everything off.

“Listen up. There’s still some important things we need to discuss.”

“Like what?” Diego asked. You knew what Luther was going to say before he said anything.

“Like the way he died.”

“And here we go,” Diego muttered.

“I don’t understand. I thought they said it was a heart attack,” Vanya said, confusion evident in her voice.

“Yeah according to the coroner.”

“Well wouldn’t they know?” You hated to agree with Vanya, but you had to.

“Luther thinks that there was foul play,” you explained. “However, there was no sign of forced entry and no sign of a struggle.”

“Well, Y/N is an FBI agent. Why don’t you trust her?” Allison asked Luther.

“Look, I’m just saying something happened. The last time I talked to Dad, he sounded strange.”

“Oh, quelle surprise,” Klaus interjected as he gurgled his drink. That wouldn’t help Luther’s anger.

“Strange how?” Allison asked.

“He sounded on edge,” Luther explained. “Told me I should be careful who to trust.”

“Luther, he was a paranoid, bitter old man, who was starting to lose what was left of his marbles.” Of course, Luther defended your father before turning to Klaus.

“Look, I know you don’t like to do it, but I need you to talk to Dad.”

Klaus laughed. “No I can’t. I’m not in the right frame of mind.”

“You’re high?” You didn’t know how Allison was surprised. It was obvious.

“Then there’s the issue of the missing monocle.”

“Who cares about a stupid monocle, Luther?” you groaned. You noticed the way Diego’s face shifted for a second. So he had the monocle. Or he at least knew what happened to it. “No one is going to break in without alerting Mom or Pogo, kill Dad and make it look an accident, then take the stupid monocle. No one that smart would be that dumb.”

“Exactly! It’s worthless. Whoever took it, I think it was personal. Someone with a grudge.”

“Where are you going with this?”

You shook your head as Diego said what you were thinking. “Isn’t it obvious, Klaus? He thinks one of us killed Dad.” The stunned faces of your siblings looked at Luther. You shook your head in disgust.

“Way to lead, Luther,” you said sarcastically. Allison and Vanya both got up and left the room.

“Can you blame me? I mean, you’ve never tried to hide how much you hate Dad. And Diego’s some sort of vigilante now. Both of you could easily sneak in and kill him.”

“You’re crazy, man. You’re crazy.” Klaus shook his head as he got up and headed back to the bar.

“I can’t believe you, Luther.”

“Do us all a favor and go back to the moon, monkey boy.” Luther’s eyes widened at my words before his face turned red with anger.

“Get out of my head,” he growled.

“I don’t need to be in your head to figure it out. Besides, your brain is so empty that your thoughts come floating out begging to be heard.”

“Neither of you are denying it,” Luther said finally. You threw your hands up and Diego stood up suddenly.

“Why would either of us decide to kill Dad now. What’s the trigger? It doesn't make sense. Unlike you, Luther, we moved on with our lives,” you explained slowly, like he was a child.

“Don’t talk down to me just because you’re an FBI agent.”

“You think there’s a murder. I catch serial killers. You should be begging for my help.”

“Unless he thinks the two of us teamed up to kill Dad,” Diego said. The two of you turned to look at Luther. He at least had the decency to look a little ashamed that he was thinking that exact thing. At that point, everyone’s voices had risen so much that you barely noticed the knock at the door.

“I’m out of here,” Diego said softly when Luther didn’t respond.

“No you’re not. Not until we figure out what happened.” Luther grabbed Diego’s arm, so Diego, of course, punched Luther in the face. Within a few seconds, they were fighting in earnest. Diego had his knives out and everything.

“Oh, you guys, don’t do this now,” Klaus whined from the bar. “Y/N, will you do something? Take away their sight or something. I’m too sober for this.”

You hadn’t used your powers in years. Ideally, Allison would come in and rumor them to stop, but you didn’t know where she had gone. Taking a deep breath, you focused your consciousness like your father had taught you. You were careful to only enter Diego’s and Luther’s minds, leaving Klaus out of it.

Darkness.

You focused on darkness, blocking out everything that your brothers were seeing. You could do this. You could control it, at least until Allison was back. Of course, being unable to see didn’t stop your brothers from blundering around.

“Y/N, stop!” Luther’s words were accompanied by a sharp blow to the back of your head. “Oh no, Y/N, I didn’t know you were right there. I can’t see anything. Just stop this, Y/N.”

“I’m just trying to stop you two from destroying the house. Besides, isn’t this a great way to honor Dad’s memory? Fighting with each other is what he always made us do.” You tried to stand back up, but your head was spinning from the blow and from the strain. There was once a time when you could hold ten people in the darkness with ease, but you weren’t used to using your powers anymore. You no longer had to spend hours each day inside other people’s minds. You could feel your control slipping, but you couldn’t stop. Your head hurt.

“Y/N!” Klaus yelled in terror. “I can’t see, Y/N.”

You had to stop. You had to stop. You couldn’t. Your head hurt and you couldn’t seem to find a way out of their minds. You were aware of other minds in the house. More than there should be. But why? And why did your head hurt so bad?

“Y/N, what are you doing? Ahhh my head!” Diego yelled. He sounded like he was in pain. You were making him feel your pain. Since when could you do that? Your Dad would have been so happy.

“I heard a rumor that you stopped.” Allison’s voice rang out. Suddenly, you were back in your own head and the splitting headache was just yours. Diego and Luther both collapsed on the floor with you. Klaus was by your side almost instantly, a new glass in hand for you, which you gulped down quickly before handing it back to him for a refill.

“Remind me not to mess with Y/N again,” Diego sighed. You met his eyes with an apologetic smile. It felt so much like you were kids who got a little carried away during training.

“I guess I got a little carried away.” The two of you laughed, and even Luther joined in eventually. The laughter stopped abruptly when a new voice spoke.

“Y/N?”

#spencer reid #spencer reid fluff #spencer reid imagine #spencer reid fic #criminal minds #criminal minds fanfiction #spencer reid fanfiction #criminal minds fluff #criminal minds imagine #criminal minds fic #spencer reid x y/n #calwrites

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nobody-wants-ice-cream · 5 years ago

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Everything Wrong With The Umbrella Academy. Episode 1, We Only See Each Other At Weddings and Funerals.

Some context before the cut: This is all in good fun! I wanted to do a really nitpicky re-watch of the series and found some really cool and interesting things I didn’t notice before. This is meant to have a Cinema Sins-esque tone. However, I did take off a lot more sins than Cinema Sins would have because I do genuinely like the series and the people that made it possible. So all of the good things got one sin off and all the bad things got one sin added. This is a really long post, so grab some popcorn. If there’s anything that I missed, feel free to add it!

We Only See Each Other At Weddings And Funerals

The story opens with a random scene. I know why this is important now, but for a first time viewer this is a strange Russian show with no subtitles. Sin for the fact that this opening scene could drive away audiences when they could have opened with Pogo’s monologue or the sudden birth scene. +1

Sudden birth. I know that this is what starts the whole series, but not once do these assholes discuss the implications of sudden birth. That shit is traumatic and must have induced a lot of trauma in the mothers. Sinning for trauma. +1

The russian ladies all help this poor girl. Teamwork and togetherness gets a sin off. -1

How did they get her swimsuit off enough for her to give birth without just taking the whole thing off? Did one woman happen to have a pair of scissors on her so they could cut the crotch? Because one piece suits are not that flexible downstairs. They didn’t take it off her, it’s still covering her. Sinning for lack of realism or explanation. +1

This narration should have happened much sooner. +1

Buying children. Literally buying children. And he gets seven so he buys them wholesale. Seven sins because Sir Reginald Hargreeves is a dick that bought seven children. +7

One sin off for the soundtrack now. All the songs used in this show are bops! -1

Ellen Page starts playing the Lindsey Stirling Phantom of the Opera piece on the lowest string when the piece starts on a high note. One sin for lack of musicality. +1

Minus one sin for Ellen Page’s vibrato. Not many people pretending to play the violin get that so accurate. That or this was the talented body double. Either way one sin off for musicality. -1

“Please send more food” Reginald Hargreeves is a dick to his adopted children. He didn’t feed Luther enough, so who knows what he did to the ones he didn’t like as much. +7

Also, Luther has presumably spent four years in this base on the moon. Did he hit his head every morning? You would think that he would learn to duck. +1

One sin off for the moon plant. -1

I’m taking 10 sins off for the special effects of this entire series. -10

That car transition between Diego’s and Allison’s entrances was out of place. I know it’s meant to show that Allison is far away from the action. But did we really need that? It’s not shown when transitioning from the red carpet to Klaus in rehab. +1

What is keeping the lawnchair that Luther has on the moon down? It looks lightweight. Does he have it nailed to the moon? Is there now a lawnchair on the moon forever? +1

Tom Hopper is an excellent actor. He nailed the “just got the news that my father is dead” without saying a single word. -1

Diego doesn’t bother to untie the family he saves. He caused property damage and severely injured the thugs that broke in. No wonder Patch has a problem with him being a vigilante. +1

“Allison, will you wear Valentino to the funeral” +1

One sin off because Robert Sheehan has already won my heart as Klaus and he hasn’t said a single word yet. And for the little jig he does when he gets the drugs. Interesting choice, but I like it. I could be biased because I’ve watched the series already, but I don’t care. One sin off for Robert Sheehan. -1

Why was Vanya allowed to be playing to this empty theatre with spotlights on her? Does she have an arrangement with maintenance? Is that why the orchestra isn’t set up? +1

One sin off for the Hargreeves mansion. The set designers did an amazing job.-1

Creepy shrine portrait of Five is creepy and somehow manages to not look like Aidan Gallager. This could be a stylistic choice to show that Reggie didn’t care about Five, in which case, another sin for child abuse. +1

Creepy statue of Ben is creepy. And it doesn’t look like Justin Min or Ethan Hwang. Who is this statue honoring? +1

It has been stated that Ben’s death broke up the academy. Yet, the other four assholes stuck around for one more portrait after his death? +1

Vanya doesn’t close the doors behind her when she walks into the mansion. +1

Diego’s outfit is central to introducing his character. However, it is dumb as hell and he probably stabbed himself with the knives in the harness multiple times. Especially the ones on his back. +1

Diego is a dick to Vanya at their father's funeral. I know Reggie was a jackass, but Jesus Christ, Diego. Have some tact. I know this is meant to show that Diego doesn’t have any tact, but this is such a severe line. +1

In the first shot of Reggie’s bedroom there are 6 freaking lamps. What is he, Bella Swan? And later, there are three more. +1

David Castaneda really brings Diego to life with his interaction with Luther in Reggie's bedroom. -1

I know I already took sins off for the special effects, but Pogo deserves another two off. Special Effects team, you did good. -2

“How long has it been since Five dissapered” is the most obvious bit of exposition/foreshadowing. To the point where it reads lazy. Another option would be Vanya asking “How long has it been since” and trailing off from there. Pogo knows what happened. This is a crucial reveal, let the audience wait for it a bit. +1

One sin off for Vanya being a good sister to Five. Fluffernutter sandwiches and leaving the lights on is heartwarming. -1

Props to these child actors for being able to portray the way Reggie treats them and how that affects their emotions in the scene where they wanted to say goodnight to Reggie. -1

However, Reginald Hargreeves is a dick to his adopted children. I will keep sinning this. +7

After Reggie shuns and ignores his children, Luther’s hand on Ben’s shoulder is a subtle way to show that Luther and Ben were sort of close, which is what an excerpt from Vanya’s book implies in the comics. Good job directors or actors for making that choice! -1

Robert Sheehan in the office scene. This is where we meet Klaus as an audience for the first time with dialogue, and he fucking nails it. -1

“Thank God he’s not our real father so we couldn’t inherit those cold dead eyes! Ahh! Number Threee-” The delivery on that line is excellent. -1

Klaus’s dangly necklace that looks kind of like dog tags foreshadowing the real dog tags he wears later on in the show. -1

No way in hell Klaus’s skimpy outfit provided enough concealment for that massive box. In fact, in the shots we do see of his back, we should have seen the outline of the box. +1

Sir Reginald Hargreeves is as obsessed with lamps as he is with collecting children. His office is full of them! +1

“Do you think he wears that thing in the bathroom” “Like in the shower” “Yes, absolutely” Allison and Luther have some good interactions. This is where they really act like siblings making fun of another sibling. -1

A woman who told bedtime stories to her kid about her uncle on the moon forgets that said uncle has been on the moon and judges him when he doesn’t know about her divorce.+1

“Rumor thing” Way to be specific, Luther. +1

Allison’s expression at the family meeting when she takes a sip of her drink. Emmy Raver-Lampman is what makes this character likeable. -1

Reginald Hargreeves was a dick to his children. The whole favorite spot thing? Yeah that. Golden child abuse victim. +7

Sir Reginald playing tennis with Hitler line. -1

Luther accuses his siblings of killing their father. Have some tact man, not at the funeral. This makes sense for the character and his circumstances, but I am still sinning it because Luther doesn’t think he did anything wrong. +1

I feel kind of bad for Luther after his siblings leave the room. Great acting on Tom Hopper’s part. -1

How did Allison get into the bank? +1

Luther straight up throws this man out of a building! That guy is 100% dead. And then he admonishes Five for being a killer later! +1

“Guns are for sissies, real men throw knives!” is a line that would only be spoken by a twelve year old that has never faced the judgement of people he isn’t related to. Also, Diego practiced this line in front of a mirror. +1

But that throw was badass, so... -1

Also, how did Klaus, Diego, Five, and Ben get into the bank as well? We only see Luther enter. And presumably Five teleported in. So were the rest already in there? +1

Five manages to jump faster than a bullet here, but in episode two he’s a lot slower when jumping from one side of the table to the other. You could make the argument that the table is in the way, but there was a human being and a bullet in the way here. +1

“Woah! That’s one badass stapler!” This is the first sin off because Aidan Gallagher can act, and it will not be the last. For all his grumpy 58 year old man, he also manages to shine while playing a young version of said grumpy 58 year old man. You would think that one or the other would be a little weak, but no he nails both performances. -1

But, how did Five switch the gun and the stapler? And why do we never see him do this again with more useful items like a briefcase or one of the machine guns used by the local commission hires? Can he only switch items with a similar mass? How does this power work? +1

Luther is the one that tells Ben that there's more guys in the vault to kill. Not Klaus who could have been like “a ghost said there's more guys in the vault”. What exactly did Klaus do on missions? He isn’t shown helping the hostages or fighting in any way. +1

“I didn’t sign up for this.” yeah Ben, like it’s a summer camp and not your abusive father buying you as an infant and then forcing you to kill people. +1

Kenny’s mom appearance. Also, the woman mixes leopard print leggings, a black dress, a square pattern cardigan, and a hat with stripes and a pom-pom. +1

“Can we go home now” Ethan Hwang had great delivery on that line. -1

Sir Reginald Hargreeves is a dick to his children. He forces 6 of them to kill, and then makes it seem like it’s all fun and games to the one he isolates. +7

When did they get coats and scarves? Did Reggie bring them coats and scarves while coming down to address the crowd? +1

Also, Reggie was on the roof of a different building with vanya! What did the kids do while they were waiting for him? Stand around and look pretty? Not likely, Ben was covered in blood. +1

Also, when did Ben have time to clean up? He is significantly less bloody in the scene where Reggie talks to the press. Yet his mask, uniform, and a bit of his jaw still have blood. This suggests he had time to wipe down. What kind of magic wipes are these that soak up and remove blood quickly and where can I get them? +1

The way the children wear their scarves show their personality. Luther has it done properly, Diego has his flapping around, Allison and Klaus have tied it fashionably, Five has it done well, but not as proper, and Ben has it done like Luthers. Well done costume people or actors who made that character choice. -1

The entire scene when Klaus attempts to summon Reggie from the afterlife. -4

I forgot that Klaus actually calls him Reggie in this scene. I thought it was just a fandom thing lmao. -1

How did Klaus clean up the ashes without leaving evidence on the bar? Did he vacuum it? +1

The cutesy fighting posters are a great set design choice. -1

Allison had her trauma tattoo refreshed at some point. It’s faded on Klaus, but on her it’s perfectly visible and stark. I’m sinning because they don’t show or tell why Allison might want to do this. +1

Also, that guitar Klaus was cuddling in a later scene, was just in the kitchen for some reason. Why? +1

Five and Ben are not part of the I Think We’re Alone Now dance party. I know it’s for plot, but come on! They don’t even have another dance party later to make up for this. +1

Diego and Vanya totally saw each other when Diego went to close the door between the foyer and the living area. +1

Luther and Vanya’s dance moves. No hate on either though because I dance like them if it isn’t swing or any other partnered dance +1

Diego, Klaus, and Allison’s dance moves. -1

Also, the song is heard all the way in the kitchen. There is no soundproofing in this mansion. +1

Luther punching down the airplane is funny. -1

David Castaneda doing those amazing dance moves in character. -1

Oh hello Five. Nice of you to show up and kickstart the plot into being something other than washed up superheroes are really sad and abused. +1

“Daddy!” -1

Why were Five’s powers affecting random objects? +1

Klaus is the only one with self preservation. “I vote for running” +1

“Does anyone else see little Number Five, or is that just me” is a great line because Klaus can see the dead. However, the dead don’t show up in massive portals, otherwise something like that would have happened when we see Dave in The Day That Wasn’t. +1

Five asks for an exact date and then Vanya gives him “the 24th” real specific, Vanya +1

Five doesn’t close the fridge properly because that doesn’t matter in the apocalypse -1

“In the end I had to project my consciousness forward into a suspended quantum state version of myself that exists across every possible instance of time” “That makes no sense” “well it would if you were smarter” the mark of someone being smart is being able to explain concepts like this in layman's terms. If Five were as smart as he said he was, then he could have been able to come up with an analogy. That or the showmakers have no clue what they’re talking about and wrote a bunch of science-y bullshit to make Five sound smart. +1

Diego was ready to throw hands with Five, someone who looks thirteen and was thirteen until Five explained otherwise. +1

“Dolores kept saying the equations were off” so in other words, Five knew that his equations were off, but he still risked it. +1

But also, Five knew his equations were off, but he was so desperate to see his family that he risked it anyway. -1

Nations Gazette paper has articles that look like they’re actually about the headline. -1

“What part of the future do you not understand.” -1

Aidan Gallagher’s delivery in that scene really set the tone for his character. Impressive. -1

Five decides to dress in the full on school boy getup. Complete with the tie and the blazer when those items aren’t necessary. +1

Aidan Gallagher and Ellen Page are two kick ass actors. They play off each other surprisingly well. -1

“You mean like what happened to Ben” “Was it bad?” What happened to Ben? This remains a sin until they explain it. +1

“May the darkness within you find peace in the light” that sounds really bad. What a horrible thing to have on your statue. +1

Jordan Claire Robbins’s performance of Grace -1

Luther and Diego are so emo that they don't need umbrellas. You’re in The Umbrella Academy! This had to be a personal choice to not carry one. +1

Klaus’s face when Luther dumps out the ashes. -1

The camera cuts to Five when Diego says that Mom gave them actual names. -1

The fight between Luther and Diego is stupid. +1

Klaus and Five fight over who is going to protect who. +1

“Stop it!” “Hit him! Hit him!” -1

The detail on Ben’s statue. It shows his toe and knee have been touched many times by people who presumably miss him and love him. -1

Luther punches Ben’s statue in the crotch, which makes Klaus’s face 10x funnier once you remember that Ben was probably there too. -1

Luther punches Ben’s statue in the crotch and beheads it, suggesting that Luther had something to do with Ben’s death. -1

Luther punches Ben’s statue in the crotch. +1

Klaus puts his cigarette out in reggie’s ashes. -1

Reggie narration +1

Reggie is a dick to his kids +7

The stupid, bright green jumpsuits +6

What is the point of this exercise? How does running up the stairs make them better heroes? +1

Young Diego either practiced “That’s not fair, Five’s cheating” or his stutter is only there when the plot calls for it. +1

Child Abuse tattoos +12

The fact that Vanya feels left out because she didn’t get a child abuse tattoo. Reggie, you fucked up these kids real bad. +2

We think that Reggie is comforting Luther after he got a child abuse tattoo, but no, he’s actually just attaching monitors to his head. +1

Reginald Hargreeves likes to watch young children sleep. +7

Vanya foreshadowing. Her monitor showing more activity then the cut to her taking one of the pills is brilliant. -1

Vanya still doesn’t close the academy door behind her when she leaves. +1

“An entire square block, 42 bedrooms 19 bathrooms” Five are you a real-estate agent now? +1

“Dad hated children too, but he had plenty of us!” Klaus would be excellent at cinema sins. Seven more for child abuse +7

What are the rules to Five’s jumps? We only really see him jump to places he can see unless he is time traveling or in the instance where he jumps to the car. Speaking of, the car had the keys in it. Reggie, are you trying to get it stolen +1

Diego is a dick to Allison about her divorce. +1

Klaus and Diego’s interactions make me happy. -1

The Klaus theme is a wonderful piece of music. -1

Robert Sheehan making David Castaneda laugh. -1

We get our first glimpse of Luther’s arm here. It’s super weird and vague and only teases the reveal. This is where the ape reveal should have been for the audience and where it would have made sense. Doing the reveal in a later episode is weird. +1

Five doesn’t know how to break correctly, which contradicts “I know how to do everything” +1

Something I just noticed, Five completed the uniform not only with the tie and blazer, but with the hair gel too. +1

The towing guy chooses to sit next to Five at an empty counter. +1

Five looks so offended when Agnes refers to him as “the kid” -1

The creepy smile Five pulls in an attempt to look innocent doesn’t make Agnes scream in terror. Seriously Aidan Gallagher, what the fuck was that that was absoulutely terrifying. +1

Five attempts to relate to a man that looks the age that he should be, but it ends up exceedingly awkward because Five looks 13. +1

The tow truck driver helps him out, but how was Five going to pay for his coffee? We don’t see him with money. Was he just going to jump out to the car? +1

Five never gets his cup of coffee :( +1

“Istanbul was Constantinople/ Now it’s Istanbul not Constantinople”. This whole scene is great. Five plays with them like he did in the bank scene which shows that even if he did age, he didn’t do it around people so he doesn’t have maturity. -1

Five stabs a guy with a mop and kills him. -1

Five stabs a guy in the crotch with a pencil, then uses the same pencil to stab him in the eye. In between he throws a plate at another guy. This is badass. -1

Five jumps in a way that actually does make two of the idiots shoot each other. Which means that technically, Patch was right. -1

Five kills a man with his bare hands. -1

But he stops to put his fucking tie back on. +1

And yet after all that, the goriest thing is when Five pulls the tracker out of his arm. Props to the makeup department and Aidan Gallagher’s acting skill for making that look so real. -1

Five should be way sweatier when he walks out of Griddys. Unless he moped that up with some napkins? What are these super absorbent napkins and where can I buy them? +1

Agnes should be far more traumatized. And definitely shouldn’t have survived that. +1

Diego is emo with the monocle. +1

Luther flashback narration. +1

Klaus, thankfully interrupts this. -1

“Number 6 “Ben” (deceased)” -1

We can see Ben depending on if it’s Klaus or Diego talking. -1

The vigilante mask Diego wears +1

Five jumpscare in Vanya’s apartment. +1

“Rapists can climb” yes Five. Continue with the criminals that can climb. Including you. +1

This whole scene is the best ending to an episode in the entire season. -1

Aidan Gallagher and Ellen Page play off each other with subtle expressions. This acting talent is amazing. -2

“The world ends in eight days and I have no idea how to stop it” “I’ll put on a pot of coffee” roll credits. I love this ending for many reasons. It’s a total mic drop moment. -2

Overall review:

While actively looking for nitpicky things, I got to see the first in a whole new light. Both the great parts and terrible parts stood out in a way that they didn’t when I wasn’t looking for them. Robert Sheehan, Aidan Gallagher, and Ellen Page were the stand out actors in this episode. All three contributed something significant that didn’t heavily rely on the script writers.

The child cast also really stood out to me. All seven of them had very limited screen time (I am counting Gallagher playing a child version of his character in this assessment) and they absolutely made the best of it. Out of all of them, Ethan Hwang stood out to me because of his overall great delivery. I hope that we see him play Ben in a more in-depth way in season 2.

Don’t get it twisted, I genuinely like this series and I think that it tells a great story. I just think it’s fun to nitpick and look deeper. After over analyzing everything else, it’s time to get back to basics. Especially because the season 2 trailer could drop any day now.

Total: 82 sins

Sentence: Tennis with Hitler and Sir Reginald.

#The Umbrella Academy #all in good fun #luther hargreeves #diego hargreeves #Allison Hargreeves #five hargreeves #ben hargreeves #vanya hargreeves #i worked really hard on this

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number5theboy · 4 years ago

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The notes I took while reading the comics are under the cut. These are not my ordered thoughts, just thoughts I had while reading. I’ll write something more coherent a bit later, once my thoughts are sorted better than these

APOCALYPSE SUITE

Diego repeatedly stabbed a Caravaggio, which just personally offends me. Also @ Reginald the fact that you left a Caravaggio in reach of your KIDS, who have KNIVES, is just as insulting. Someone save that Caravaggio since anything and anyone else is beyond saving

“Inexplicable resemblance to an Ingmar Bergmann extra” askjdsgbkdsbhsd Gerard sir that is so oddly specific. Is Reginald an Ingmar Bergman fan. Is that what you’re trying to tell us. Or is Klaus just a silent movie type

Right off the bat, the comics universe is so much more interesting than the show universe. They have boxers who beat up squids like??? Give us an adaptation with the comic world, preferably animated

The kiddos were all born to “mostly single women” dsbksdgbksdgbdsg??? Did the magical alien thingamajig check their relationship status first?

“Inventor of The Televator, The Levitator, The Mobile Umbrella Communicator, and Clever Crisp Cereal” dgdsghsgdhjsdkjhg Reginald names his inventions like Dr. Doofenschmirtz from Phineas and Ferb

Also the page that reveals/introduces Reginald is SO good, just the panelling and the action tells you so much. There’s dead bodies and excavations and masks in addition to text. It’s great.

“The Day The Eiffel Tower Went Berserk” is an EXCELLENT hook to a story

“It’s your Eiffel Tower, it’s gone insane and must be stopped at all costs.” Dksgdhjbkgsdhjbdsghjb the show could never

This comic keeps disrespecting cool art. Why is it doing that to me. Don’t let the musée d’orsay get robbed

Okay, luther came through for me on that

Dsdhlsdghlgsdhldsh the siblings arguing while the Eiffel Tower is falling apart around them had me cackling

“WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE” dsbdgsbgsdbdgsbklsd okay diego

“And just as I suspected – ZOMBIE-ROBOT GUSTAVE EIFFEL!” hello I need at least three comics of back lore on this. Why does luther have that hunch. Why is Gustave Eiffel a zombie-robot. How did we get here. Please I want answers

The missing line on the ‘e’ of ‘touché’ makes that dramatic moment way less dramatic and more funny ngl

Oh but you can be bothered to put the accent aigu on ‘séquence’

“And while you lost the Eiffel Tower, you saved Paris.” I am laughing too hard by this point. How dare this be a barely brushed upon adventure. Please I need to know more about zombie-robot Gustave Eiffel

Te Ben-robot makes me emotional and “Only my father calls me Number One”? ouch.

Also for the record, I love Luther’s design SO much

“Hello your father is dead. Please audition for my orchestra for revenge. Many thank. Bye.” Okay Conductor, whatever floats your boat, I guess

“and something worse is coming” dbhsdghbjgshbjsgbjhkgf okay Five, whatever floats your boat I guess

Allison immediately coming in with the ‘I know everyone blames you for Ben’s death, Luther, but honestly, who the fuck knows?’ dsbgbhdgshbsgdhkbj

Klaus has such an entrance and I honestly didn’t know that Claire was a comic character

The introduction to the apocalypse comes SO the fuck out of nowhere, but grumpy little Five with the ‘I knew I shouldn’t have run away from home’ speech bubble? Awesome

Also just genuinely interesting that Five truly hated Reginald and was aware of these feelings

The apocalypse introductions in the show and the comic are going for different feelings but they are both equally devastating, which is a nice touch

Also someone give show! Five a sword

Comic Diego is a fuckboy, and that’s obvious from a hundred paces

Apparently Grace makes me sad in any incarnation

Okay but the backdoor of the Icarus in the show is lifted straight out of the comics

I love the Conductor’s design so much, and his introduction is so good

Oh my god someone get a language checker, The Orchestra Verdammten doesn’t even make grammatical sense

I love the Conductor, he is so extra and just the concept of a piece of music that destroys the world…….it fucks so hard

This comic just throws wild shit at you and expects you to keep up

Just read the instructions Dr. Terminal gave his bots. Is he okay.

Why does Dr. Terminal want to eat Finland. Please I need to know what’s going on in that head of his

Gabriel Ba has excellent comedic timing

Five is a bitch and I love him

Diego hiding in a haunted house…….what a drama queen

Klaus is so fucking funny oh my god

Diego is so hilariously bitter towards Vanya. No need to destroy her like that, asshole

Love how Diego single-handedly brought about the apocalypse. What an idiot.

Dr. Pogo deserves the world

The Vanya reveal of powers is a bit. Uh. Underwhelming. Love the Frankenstein set-up tho

The art, man……..it’s so good

Comic Luther is SO savage holy shit

I love you Mister Conductor, but please stop butchering languages I know, thanks

I knew he was gonna die, but I am still hurt. Please bring him back, he’s the best character in this

“I don’t know where to begin…But I suppose I should start with the Kennedy assassination.” Okay five you drama queen

Allison is a bitch, and I mean that as a compliment

Honestly these Five and Vanya are made to be enemies, it’s great

HELL YEAH YOU GO KLAUS

This wraps up a little too nicely. Where did the moon boulder go

DALLAS

Sagfdghjasfkjghdsfjhksfhkj it opens with a ‘by the way, I’m still dead’ from Pogo

I can’t believe TUA directly inspired Night at the Museum 2: Battle of the Smithsonian

No seriously, I knew about sentient monument Abraham Lincoln but this entire scene FUCKS

Dsbksgdbhsgbhksgdhbkj Celebrity Surgery, the big popular reality TV show, I’m laughing

Luther and Klaus are both such messes jeesus, even if Klaus is coping better

Allison immediately kidnaps Vanya and exposes her to all the horrible shit she caused?? Dbgbhjdgkjhbgdhkj I love these versions of the characters

While Show!Diego is Walmart Batman, Comic!Diego is Walmart Rorschach

I thought I got the gazelle speech but now I’m just confused

It literally is an epiphany AND WHAT GOT HAZEL AND CHA-CHA SENT ON HIS ASS I’M

CACKLING

Also that one wordless Hazel and Cha-Cha panel……..so good

Five is a communist lmao Diego

Luther and Diego arguments are tedious in both versions

I hate the Marilyn Monroe ape scene. With a passion. It is so cursed

Also show Hazel and Cha-Cha were partners that grew apart. I think comics Hazel and Cha-Cha are in love

I am every killer ever. That is one cute puppy.

Also Klaus and God is great in every universe

Dsjfghjdhjdgjhbdgbjhkdbkjhgb Five’s face when he is outfoxed

Why do dream!Luther and Allison have am ape cyclops daughter

I love the Luther&Klaus dynamic

This is just a remix of Watchmen

I have no idea why they suddenly know what Five is up to, from the corpse of a Commission agent. What.

Wait now they can use corpses as time travel devices. What.

Okay, Klaus accidentally blew up the world. Cool?

I am so confused

Now Diego Klaus and Luther are fighting vampires in Vietnam and hurling mummies through the bush. Okay.

So Pogo always knew what kind of disasters they’d turn into? Dskbgdsbkhsdgbkgsdkh

THE WHOLE JFK ASSASSINATION ARC IS AMAZING

HOTEL OBLIVION

Hotel Oblivion really just presents a cockroach on a plate to you, huh

Reginald’s aesthetic is seriously so much cooler than he deserves

EVIL IS THE NAME OF THE FIRST PART OF HOTEL OBLIVION?!? I SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE MR. AIDAN GALLAGHER

Five is a hired gun now?!? Man, that dude cannot catch a break ever

“TV is a healthy alternative to dying” esjkdsgbkgskbhdsgkbes

Who is Luther’s Japanese bro?!?

Also I just kind of really like the Luther&Diego dynamic in the comics

The show robbed us of Allison helping Vanya recover. It robbed us of Vanya getting injured in the first place, so what recovery, but still. This is incredibly sweet

God, all the villains in this universe are so intriguing. Except for Knock-Off-Adrian-Veidt, I keep forgetting that Perseus exists

“I’m a haunted house.” Is so metal as a self-descriptor

What the FLYING FUCK is Klaus doing there

Giant chicken?

The Enterprise???

“What are you doing?” “A report. I’m really interested in capitalism.” Djhsgjgskjvsevksevjesvjsefjv maybe Diego is right and Five is indeed a communist

“I know what it feels like to be unloved. I was born an object, and never treated as anything but.” It really was that bad, wasn’t it?” “For the both of us, yes.” B R U H

Evil Grace is fun

I love Allison and Five and their relationship so much

Five is interested in the stock market??

I am way too emotionally invested in whether Murder Magician and his baby make it out of there

Oh I CANNOT believe their romantic loves for their SISTERS is what unites them. I hate this.

What on earth is going on with Perseus and the flying head of Medusa

Alive Ben 😊☹

I am an idiot for not making the Perseus-Medusa connection sooner.

The Eiffel Tower now looks like the love child of the actual Eiffel Tower and the Atomium.

And now the Dr. Manhattan knock-off is here

God I love Allison so much

What the fuck is Pereus on about

Terminal eats a zoo

Scientific Man borders on plagiarism I’m sdhbgshsvjhksfvjksdjhkdsj

No no no no no not the Murder Magician

This whole baby arc makes me so soft

HELL YEAH LUTHER

Well this ended on a cliffhanger

#Lizzie reads the comics #i mean i made the notes might as well share them #i made progressively less because i really got into some of the parts of dallas and hotel oblivion

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ofmythsandmadness · 5 years ago

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i need a favour - three.

PART THREE - it was an extreme circumstance! what was i supposed to do, let you decapitate your brother with a butter knife?! or, dinners at the hargreeves house is always fun - but the added element of yours and diegos fake relationship? a party like never before.

WORD COUNT: 5500 or so. (oops. sorry) PREVIOUS PART(s): part one, part two.

A/N - I forgot about this, for a hot moment. Whoops. If you want to be added to the taglist, just ask and let me know. As well, if I missed you, just shoot a heads up.

NONE OF THIS WAS NECESSARILY ‘NEW’.

She had gone to the Hargreeves before, loads of times. Whether it was to babysit Klaus, or pick one of them up, or even attend one of their infamous family dinners, because for some reason they all seemed to like her. She probably knew the place inside and out, aside from the basement area - but no one really talked about that part. She was comfortable with all of them, even Luther, no matter how many stupid fights they had all gotten into. Often leading to her playing Diego’s hype man and saying the shit he could not say (and then feeling horribly guilty later, often finding some way to make up for it, because she was far from the hardened badass she played out to be). And, honestly?

She loved them all. They felt like a second family and despite everything they had been through, she continued to feel that way.

So, the fact that she actually felt nervous to the point of nauseous, attending the monthly get-together, was really saying something.

Y/N smoothed down the front of her dress and adjusted her stance in the mirror. She folded her hands in front of her and tried to look poised, put-together, like she had her shit together even if she was just about to shit her pants thinking about it. If she was going to pull this off and help Diego out, she could not appear nervous. At all. It had to be a normal thing. A comfortable thing. A sort of thing where she would smile and not immediately vomit from her raging anxiety whenever he did so much as refer to her as his ‘girlfriend’. Even if at that moment, for some reason that totally freaked her out.

“Come on, Y/N,” she muttered to herself, twisting her fingers to the point where the joints ached. “Get yourself together. You can do this.”

But, could she do this?

She loved the Hargreeves and had known them long enough to know them; their quirks, personalities, all the little things they did to get out of a situation, and their lying faces. She could read even Allison like an open book - which meant they could all do the same to her. There was probably no way to get anything past them, unless she truly devoted herself to the task. She had to let go of her insecurities and the worry of them finding out (and that strange little knot in her stomach that only pushed when she thought about Diego, now) and just focus on her role.

It was just dinner - Diego never liked to stay long anywhere, anyways.

She jumped at the screech of the window, followed closely by his voice calling her name. She sighed, forcing back the edge of panic and let her calmer facade come on.

“Y/N?”

“In here.”

Y/N slumped to her bed, leaning back to wait for him to stumble in. When he did, she forced a smirk. “Look at you, looking like a respectable member of society.”

He rolled his eyes, as always expected, body slumped against the frame of her door. His eyes lingered on her face, a softer look melting away the normal stress wrinkles he wore so openly. “Could say the same for you.”

“Oh, yeah?”

Diego nodded and held an arm out in offering, one she took eagerly as help for her heels. “You look good, Y/L/N.”

It was a simple compliment. And also, one she had gotten before. A thrown aside, often mutual, that did not mean much. But for some reason, her cheeks flushed pink and she had to fidget with her shoes a moment longer, eager to lose the blush before standing up again. She could barely bite out a ‘thanks’ in a normal tone - and it was that, that solidified her nerves even more.

Unfortunately, he read right through her mask. “What’s wrong? You nervous?”

“Nervous? What-no-I-” she stopped spluttering and sighed, giving up entirely. Her smile fell and was replaced with a watery grimace. “Is it that obvious?”

“Just a bit,” he grinned back. His hand remained on her arm, steadying her, even if she was good and standing already. “But s’fine. I’m not excited for this, either.”

She gasped dramatically. “Whoa, the great Diego Hargreeves, nervous? My word, my, my isn’t this something! Why, if I never!”

“I didn’t say I was nervous, and I didn’t tease you for being so scared, either.”

“I’m not scared, jackass.”

“S’that why your face is redder than a tomato?”

Immediately, Y/N ducked her head and shoved him away. “Shut up,” she grumbled. “Let’s just go before I lose my will and just send your siblings a picture of our divorce papers.”

He chuckled. “Divorce papers? Didn’t realise I even popped the question.”

“Oh, you did, and I regret it every day of my life.” She dropped the sarcastic veil for a moment to mumble a ‘thank you’ for him holding the door, only to snap back right after. “It’ll be hard to split up the children, but...we’ll make it work.”

“Kids? Shit, Y/N.”

“Oh, yeah, babe.” Y/N whirled around to grin through her queasiness, rubbing her belly exaggeratedly. “Twins.”

“I knew you were hiding somethin’ from me!”

Their laughter floated down the apartment hallway and out the lobby doors, light-hearted and teasing of the other - even while the both of them struggled with their own inwardly doubts. Insecurities and nervous thoughts neither dared to admit, though they threatened to surface with every passing moment.

Both knew the dinner was going to be more than a walk in the park. Even if they dared not breathe that worry out loud to the other.

“RULE NUMBER ONE.”

“Elbows off the table?”

“Y/N-”

“Chew with my mouth closed?”

“Y/N!”

“Riiight, stick to the story no matter what,” she groaned, though she wore a smile and not a grimace. Her hand twisted in his, squeezing for just a second before falling limp. “C’mon, Diego. We’ve been over this, and over this...and over this.”

Not even a hint of a smile. She sighed. “I know what I’m doing, you know what you’re doing, and we’re gonna knock this dead. Maybe even be out before eleven.”

His face still did not change, however, despite her teasing and smiles. It was composed in a stony blank stare, the sort that was a cover for any feelings underneath. She knew it well, as it was often the coverup during any sibling fights the seven got into - which happened quite a lot. She had to coax a smile out of him, sometimes a task harder than easier. But it was weird, knowing that this time, they were both walking into that delicate situation and she could not just giggle her way into a grin from him.

“It’ll be okay. I know the steps and I know your siblings. I know all the ways to get under their skins - like, if Allison gets too curious, I’ll just call up that shitty sketch show she did when she was getting started? I think I’ve memorized just about - what are you looking at?”

Diego had paused, causing Y/N to draw to a stop too, just before the door. He was staring forward, jaw slack, strangely just past her - or even at her, she really could not tell. He seemed almost frozen, until she waved her hand and repeated the question.

“Nothin,” he said, voice gruffer than before. He coughed and drew forward, hand tighter in hers. “Just - you’re always a fucking surprise.”

And before she could ask just what that meant, they were standing in front of the door, and said door was swinging open, leaving her to awkwardly smile and accept the cheery Allison Hargreeve’s invitation to come inside.

“Hey, Y/N,” she greeted first, wrapping the girl up in a tight hug before moving onto her brother. “Don’t you two look nice, wow!”

She fought an eye-roll at the comment and bit back any snide remarks, no matter how good they were. “Thanks, but I mean, c’mon - you look great. California’s really suiting you.”

Allison had been filming her latest flick, a star-studded thriller and had been away for just about seven months. And it was true, what she said; her skin glowed and the smile on her face did not look so fixed, rather genuine, actually. Things sometimes could get tense and often the woman’s face reflected the sticky state of her relationship with certain siblings, but it was clear that was not the case yet, tonight.

“Thanks, but let’s not focus on me,” she cooed back. Her hands wrapped around Y/N’s, then Diego’s, tugging with a wide grin. “You two! Holy crap -- I mean, it was something we all hoped would happen, but -- it happened!”

“Ha - yeah, that’s...it happened.”

“You two are so perfect for each other, seriously. I’m just happy my brother finally got a grip and asked you out!”

Y/N shot Diego a sharp look, pointedly raising her brows at the woman, as if to ask what to do with that sentence. Of course, he made his own point to ignore her completely. Asshole, she glared.

“Let’s head in, yeah?” She said, eager to cut Allison off before the evening could start. There was no way she was going to lose this battle before even making it to the living room. “Where’s Grace and everyone?”

“Oh, everyone but Luther’s here now, and Grace’s in the kitchen - she’s excited to see you both, though, too.”

Okay, so there were two things that would somewhat balance out, at least. Luther and Diego would fight, without fail, just as they always did, but Grace was always a healing voice in his life, she’d hopefully keep him a bit calm. If he could be calm; it really felt like she was holding the arm of a ticking time bomb rather than a fake boyfriend. Just to be honest.

“Remember,” he gritted to her, lips brushing near her ear, “don’t mention anything.”

“Anything? At all?”

“You know what I mean.”

She drew past him and away from his arms, puckering her lips into a fake kiss as she followed his sister in. Diego followed close behind, but they both separated - him being tugged away by a seemingly desperate looking Klaus, her eyes immediately meeting with Vanya.

“Hey, Vanya,” she greeted, moving into a gentle embrace. It only lasted a moment, however, Y/N pulling away so she could study her friend’s face a bit closer.

It was obvious the trauma of past months still stuck with her, as it would anyone; worry lines and dark circles left gentle stains on the girl’s face, aging that seemed to happen so quickly. She still looked so tired, like sleep had escaped her for aeons and she had no clue how to earn it all back. But, Y/N mused, she did look better than before. Her smile was not so forced and she seemed to carry herself a bit more confidently - no more as scared to be in the Hargreeves hellhole of a mansion.

“How are you doing?”

“Good.”

“Yeah?”

She nodded, a bit stronger that time. “Yeah, I’m good. Busy, with work n’all that, but busy’s...good,” Vanya finished, weakly shrugging. “Sorry. Does that make sense?”

“Perfect sense. I get it - keeps you going, keeps your mind occupied.” She sank into the sofa, comfortably close enough to Vanya while maintaining some distance. She did try her best remember the woman was still working through things and liked to keep some boundaries. “How’s all that then, with the orchestra? I can’t wait to see it, soon.”

She grinned at that, properly. “Don’t know, but hopefully...hopefully, things work out. But I - we don’t have to just talk about me.”

“Oh, no, I like to hear about this! It’s been too long, I feel like I’m missing out on your life.”

“I know but I mean, c’mon.” Her hand reached out to pat her knee, a gentle touch so rare for her. “I think - I don’t really know what I’m supposed to say here. Maybe congratulations?”

Y/N smiled gently. Her eyes flitted over to Diego, watching him talk for a brief second before turning her attention back to Vanya. “Uh, thanks...yeah, it’s definitely - it’s big. I don’t think even we were expecting it. But here we are.” Inwardly, she winced at her fumbling words. And the award for best actress goes to...

“How did you two...happen?”

She swallowed the lump in her throat, shrugging back her nerves and fought for frozen composure. Her hands shook ever so slightly in her lap. “Oh, you know. It’s honestly not that great of a story, sort of blase.”

“Was he the one to ask you out?” There was an uncharacteristic sparkle in the woman’s eyes as she leant a bit closer, “I would never think he’d have the guts to actually do it.”

Y/N forced a laugh. “Well, I mean - somewhat, yeah. It was more of a mutual thing?”

Vanya frowned, raising a brow in question.

“He was just...over, it was late, and while I was cleaning up his wounds for the umpteenth time. We just got to talking about it somehow.” She looked back down to her lap. “We, uh, both decided to just throw logic out the window and give it a try, considering that everyone already thought we were together anyways. And, uh, here we are. Ha. Right?”

She probably had to work on that delivery, but Vanya at least took it all without a single question. Her smile grew and in a rare moment of affection, her arms clasped around Y/N tight. “I’m so happy for you,” she mumbled, drawing back almost as quickly as she moved in. “You two seem right together. Sorta always have.”

“Yeah...yeah, he’s great. Once you get past his grumpy exterior, he’s really quite the sweetheart.” Their eyes caught across the room, and without meaning to, Y/N smiled. Her head ducked away before she could lose her train of thought, leaving her to completely miss his shy grin back. “It just feels natural, y’know?”

Vanya nodded sagely. “I know what you mean. We all thought you two would have gotten together - everyone’s been saying it for years, but I don’t know if any of us thought it would actually happen.”

“Honestly? I didn’t think it’d happen either. But I’m...glad it did.”

“Good. M’glad you two have each other. You’ve always made him so happy, Y/N.”

She wanted to call Vanya out on that statement, ask just what that meant - but could she, really? Or was she supposed to take all the mysterious statements like that in hand and smile like she knew exactly what they meant? It was not like she could easily bring it up to Diego himself, without both of them feeling incredibly awkward. She guessed it was just supposed to chalk up to the same feelings the siblings had for Diego and her in general, the desire to get them together from the very start.

She just smiled the remark off. “It’s all still new, we’re just seein’ where this goes.”

“Right, of course.”

“Hey, darling,” a voice said from behind her. Y/N fought back the urge to snap at the pet name - which okay, was slightly better than the others, but she was not going to tell him that - and simply turned to look his way. He was smiling and holding a hand out to her, clearly waiting for her to take it. “Can you come help me in the kitchen?”

She smiled softly at Diego and rose. Her gaze shot back to Vanya, twisting to look more apologetic then happy. “I’m sorry to leave mid-con-”

“-it’s okay, no worries,” she said, waving a hand as though to pass the issue straight up. She took note that the woman never looked directly at Diego, just slightly past him - though she did smile his direction. “Congrats, you two.”

Diego merely nodded, making a sort of grunt noise in acknowledgement before gently taking Y/N’s hand and gesturing the way out. His hand moved to the small of her back, leading her forward into the kitchen where the ever-familiar blonde figure worked. Before she could ask why they had left the siblings (or why he had to slip a pet name in there again), Grace was turning around and her smile had to snap right back on.

“Mom, hi.”

Y/N remained back as Diego greeted his mother, watching as the two embrace. She could not help but soften her smile at the sight; despite her own anxiety, there was a sort of peace, existing between the two that made everything around her a little easier to deal with. He adored his mother, and had done everything he could for her. His love it was obvious even in the littlest of details. How he hugged her, smiled, even looked her way. She had seen him with such an expression before, she knew that, but could not place the place or person - just that it was rare to see him so at ease.

“It’s so nice to see you, Diego,” Grace cooed, resting a gentle hand on her ‘son’s’ cheek. She turned away from the man to smile at Y/N. “And Y/N! You look so beautiful tonight.”

“Thanks, Grace. As do you.”

The being mechanically nodded, just enough hesitation between each movement to show the still robotic features of the human-appearing woman. “Thank you, dear.”

“Uh, mom - I wanted to bring Y/N to you, for a reason.” Diego pulled away from his mother’s side to stand close to her once more, hand at her spine and nervous smile tugging at his lips. “I w-wanted to introduce her to you properly, now that we’re together.”

The next moments flash by so fast, she could not even say if they happened or if it was all just in her head. She could only remember his bashful smile and her red-lipped grin pressing into her temple, a warm voice wishing some sort of happiness and - well, truthfully, she had tuned out the second he had touched her lower back again. The moment he spoke, something had changed, and it no longer felt like a dangerous game played in jest.

She knew it was nothing, had to be so, but the way he said those two words. The smile that graced his lips - it did not feel the same as any other time they had mentioned their relationship. It felt real. Like she was a normal human being who was actually meeting a boyfriend’s mother for the first time, as though she was supposed to really feel nervous and shy but giddy to reach that milestone in their journey. Like it fucking meant something.

And that? That, was absolutely terrifying.

THE REST OF THE NIGHT WENT BY IN A BLUR. She could hardly focus on a thing, chewing mechanically through food she did not taste and smiling when it was necessary in conversations she did not hear. Dinner at least was pretty simple and she could get away with this easily, though. Everyone had something to say and every topic drummed up at least twenty minutes of arguing - so much so that their relationship was barely mentioned. Sure, they got a couple sly looks and a few comments from Klaus - but the rest was a breeze.

Aside from her own troubling thoughts.

She turned her gaze upwards, meeting those of Vanya’s across the table. The woman was frowning, and mouthed ‘are you okay?’, with raised brows. All she could do was smile and nod ever so slightly in an attempt to cover her distraught. She did not seem to believe her, but there was nothing she could do about that.

Her eyes turned back to the rest of the siblings, sensing a lull in the conversation, and finally spoke up. “How’s Five, these days? Hasn’t he missed what, like four of these dinners?”

“Three,” Klaus shot out, absent-mindedly swirling the mocktail in his glass with a dismal look. “And really, I couldn’t say. He says we’re too dense to understand his work.”

“He’s trying to hone his abilities, figure out how far he can stretch them. I think right now, he’s working on something in the 60s, but that’s just a guess.”

Diego huffed. “He always had to be the overachiever.”

Across the table, Luther scoffed and set down his fork. “He’s using his powers for the greater good, at least that’s something.”

“What’s that?”

She could practically hear the eyes rolling. Everyone knew what was to come, because as far as she knew, it happened almost every time. Some stupid remark that either Luther or Diego made, that made the either overreact - two big egos clashing with one another constantly. They had done their best to make up, but it never was perfect.

“What are you doin’, huh big guy?” He had stood up at that point, clutching his butter knife like it could be a real weapon - though anything was, with Diego. “What good have you been cookin’ up?”

“We all do our part.”

“Don’t bullshit me here with vague...bullshit!”

The comeback was admittedly weak, but it was still enough to get the brother riled. Luther stood up, flames for eyes, and smashed his fist against the table. No one even flinched. “At least I’m doing something - you’re a criminal, Diego.”

“Ex,” he gritted back. She could practically see the anger building inside him, and yet he managed to keep a thin level of calm, fueling his snarky tone with the rage. “That’s in the past, unlike everything you build your life on now. How long has it been since ‘dad sent you to the moon’. Huh?”

Y/N rested a hand on his, but it was brushed off quickly. So was her hiss to ‘stop’, unfortunately. She sank back perturbed.

“I’m doing important work, unlike you!”

“Unlike me - I save lives, Luther. Every single goddamn night. Putting what Dad did to us to good use. You-you sit on your ape ass and pine after Allison-”

“-dude, that argument is so old,” butted in Allison herself. “Please pick a new one.” She pounded against Y/N’s extended fist with a grim smile, accenting the point. “Also, you’re both embarrassing yourselves.”

She nodded, once more pulling at his arm - that time more successfully. “Please just sit down...baby.” It felt weird to add that on, but also odd not to. Like she needed that accent for a truly strong statement.

What mattered, though, was that it worked. His gaze turned to her with wide eyes as though surprised at her words - probably because ‘baby’ had never left her lips earnestly before. He sank back down and loosened his grip on the knife as requested, though the grimace did not budge.

Y/N smiled softly and moved to talk, but was cut off quickly by Luther, who was still teeming. “So just because of her, you want to be civilized?”

“Luther-”

“-be grateful, Spaceboy.” A wry grin tickled his lips, though he was anything but jovial. “I could still run this knife straight through your thick skull if you say one more thing.”

“I’m not scared of you.”

“You should be.”

“And why’s that?” Luther pushed, almost as though he was eager to press all of Diego’s buttons. Like he wanted a show. “Why should I be scared of you, number two?”

“Don’t act like you’re above us all now,” he gritted back, glaring so hard she feared Luther might turn straight to stone. “I could still gut you like a fish, if I wanted.”

“And would your girlfriend want that?”

Y/N watched as his grip tightened on the knife, so tight his fingers were paling by the second.

“Don’t fucking talk about her.”

She could almost read his mind; sense his next move. And whatever it was, it was not going to end in a good time. Fights with them only escalated until one of them were forced to step down - and it was never through just words. The two were too careless and competitive to just let the other claim victory. Luther got too riled to quickly, and Diego never knew when to stop. Maybe just the worst combinations of personalities put into one room, again and again.

But at that time, she refused to have the night ruined, or to go home upset. That time, was going to be different, and the Hargreeves family dinner could maybe have at least one smile leaving the table. She was not there for nothing.

“Diego, just step down.”

“I-”

-before he could finish his thought, or before anyone could comprehend what was going on, Y/N was moving forward. She tugged his face to her and without a grain of thought, pressed her lips to his. It was rough and she almost winced when their faces collided, but still she continued, doing her best to sell the illusion against a frozen Diego. Her hand slid to cup his cheek, subtly covering their mouths just enough to pull back. With eyes shut tight and lips barely apart from his, she spoke, “shut the fuck up, or I’m walking right now”, before closing the distance once more.

It was weird. In a lot of ways. She had not really thought hard about their first actual kiss, but had not imagined it in front of all his siblings at the dinner table as they all shouted and hollered at the sight. She also had not imagined - well, truly, Y/N could not have expected any part of the outcome. The immediate thought to just kiss him, then him frozen in complete shock, before melting in to her touch, presumably to sell the act. She had to admit, he was far from a bad kisser, lips moving surprisingly-

“-are we ready for dessert?”

When had Grace even left? Y/N had not seen her move from her chair, though she supposed in the chaos, that was not too shocking. The second her voice floated through the air, however, she pulled away from Diego and sank back into her seat with new energy. Cheeks hot and lips just the slightest bit swollen, she ducked her head, not eager to see the faces of those around her.

Especially not his.

“I don’t know about you guys,” Klaus said, eager to fuel her shame further, “but I definitely could eat. How about you, Diego, are you still hungry, or are you-” he cut himself off with a loud yelp.

She did not look up, but no one could mistake the whizzing of the butter knife and Klaus’ shout of surprise, narrowly avoiding the serrated edge going straight into his jugular. In normal circumstances, she would laugh her ass off at the sight, probably berate Diego even through her giggles - but all she could do was bite back the urge to run very far away, away from the disaster situation just created around her. BY her.

Y/N sighed and clutched her fingers a little bit tighter. So much for quick and easy.

“WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?”

“What the hell was what?”

“Why did you kiss me?”

Y/N stormed right past him, eager to find her way out of that house’s vicinity. However, just as she thought she was free, he caught her arm and pulled her back.

“Let me leave,” she mumbled, freeing herself and resuming her walk. Her frown only grew as she heard him follow. “Okay? We did dinner, great, bye now.”

“You kissed me.”

“I panicked!”

He chuckled grimly behind her. “You panicked - Y/N, that was a full on makeout in front of my entire family!”

“Well...Five wasn’t there. And Ben’s not fully here, does he count?”

“Not the point!”

She rolled her eyes and walked faster - though it was pointless, he always kept up. Screw him and his super human self. “I did what I had to do before one of you went too far. I’m sorry, I just - I panicked, and you weren’t listening to me!”

“I was.”

“You were not! An’ you were about to cut Luther’s head in two right then and there. I thought that in case of emergency - I had to do something, before dinner turned into a bloodbath.”

She had finally stopped then, clutching her thin jacket around her body as she shivered. He stood in front of her, fists in his pockets with a strange look in his eyes - unreadable, just as before.

“Sure,” he finally said, slowly. “I just didn’t think that was when we were going to...you know.”

Y/N shrugged. “It was bound to happen eventually. We both knew that.”

“At our first couples outing?”

“Again, might I mention the decapitation act nearly committed?”

He half grinned at that, though his eyes remained stormy. There was something up, not necessarily with the kiss - more than that, though she could not figure out what. “Not a great excuse.”

“Saving you from prison time isn’t a great excuse?”

“No, I think...you were just that eager to kiss me.”

“Sure, if you mean so we could both walk out of there alive, yeah. I was down to kiss you - for the sake of that, only.”

“You were eager to have the chance, don’t kid yourself.”

She rolled her eyes and took a step back, distancing herself even more. Suddenly, even in the late autumn chill she felt hot, flashes of heat running up and down her body like her embarrassment decided to throw a rave without permission.

“I’m sorry,” she finally said, toing the ground with her boot. “I didn’t want to make out with you in front of your family.”

Diego shrugged, a slyer smile building on his lips. “M’sure they enjoyed the show.”

“Gross.”

“I mean, you really went for it-”

“-stop, stop,” she begged, head in her hands. She could hear his laughter, feel it floating around her, but at least she could eliminate the sight of his smirk from the torture. “I get it. Okay? Can we forget about and just get outta here?”

“I don’t think anybody’s gonna be forgetting that anytime soon.” He mumbled something after that, but it was too low for her to catch. Diego stepped close to her, grabbing her arms so as to tug them away from her face, and pulled her forward. “C’mon. Let’s go.”

SHE COULD NOT SLEEP. Try as she did, Y/N’s eyes would just not shut; sleep had escaped her, this time all because of herself. Her brain would not turn off and the thoughts that she had ignored the day before were haunting her awake during the night.

She could not forget the kiss. It was stupid and meaningless and yet like a broken record player, it just kept going and going, over and over in her mind until she could knew it too well. Just as it would leave her mind, she would shut her eyes and it would be back - his lips on hers, his stubble pressed into her hand, jaw clenched, his own fingers pressed ever so lightly against her waist -

-Y/N sprung up and stormed out of her bedroom. Aimlessly she walked, pacing her apartment in nary but sleep shorts and one of his own black sweaters, left behind on one of his wounded nights. It was driving her mad. Really, truly, crazy. Just one kiss and she was plain-out insane. Amazing.

She could blame it on the moment, the rush of it all - or even the nerves that had been building from the very start of the evening. She was stressed and it all happened so fast and all she had wanted was for him to shut up before he got hurt...and maybe that was why she was so invested in the embrace. A great deal had been poured into the kiss, and her brain confused that with actual romantic feelings for the guy.

Y/N scoffed and pulled the shirt tighter around her shivering body. She was playing herself, and there was not even a way out. She could not turn her brain off, and definitely there was no way she would tell Diego anything. To admit she was still fixated on a heat-of-the-moment solution - not even a kiss, merely a solution - would be a huge mistake and one she refused to fall for. Besides, she grumbled, what was he to do? He had probably forgotten all about it at that point.

This was all so very, very stupid. And even worse? Very, very, very confusing, emotionally.

She should never have agreed to this fake relationship in the first place.

TAGLIST: @asexualmarauder @thatshellfiredean @the-bird-suit @rangotangomango @fandomsandmore394 @thatkidofwarandpeace @antoouu

#i need a favour series #diego hargreeves x reader #friends to lovers #fake dating #diego hargreeves oneshot #diego hargreeves imagine #tua x reader #the umbrella academy

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acuriouslilthing · 4 years ago

Text

Umbrella Academy S2 R a n t

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~SPOILERS~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Note: This is totally my opinion. Don’t like, don’t read. Also, I haven’t read any of the comics. This is all based on the Netflix series. Please don’t attack me.

I’d say, season 2 was a jumble. It was quite dizzying. The characters had many ups and downs in developments. The transitions were so w t f. There were too many arcs. The relationships were. . . And the plot had such a similar theme to the first season. With that, let’s dive in.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

CHARACTERS

I’ll go into the characters each in a bit but here’s an overview. The characters were sort of a mess? I’d say in terms of the main characters, Allison, Vanya and Ben were the best (Ben wasn’t even there frequently). The worst being our Luther and Klaus? (Don’t get me wrong he’s one of my favorite characters but I think this season did him quite dirty?)

-Number 1/Luther: MOON BOY!!! Yeah no I really didn’t enjoy watching him this season. Actually scratch that I didn’t enjoy watching him in season 1 either. It’s nothing against his daddy issues, I’m sure most if not all of the main characters have them. It’s just how he deals with it? His want for a father figure goes on to a mafia rich guy named “Jack” who he got acquainted with after getting stuck. I’m all for finding father figures who’d treat you better than the original but seriously? Lmao we don’t even see Jack after abandoning him for one lost fight. Which I guess parallels to Mr Hargreeves abandoning him but weren’t we supposed to let Luther develop? Idk, He’s just such a lost puppy. As well as his is addiction for Allison. It’s just so unhealthy I c a n ‘ t. I just couldn’t see his development. Hell, he disagrees for saving the world then goes on to do random ass stuff that is so unnecessary. I visibly groaned whenever he was on screen. Not caring about the apocalypse? Fine. Getting high with Elliot? oKaY. Telling Diego to find the siblings while he tries to coax Five, only to fall asleep? WHATEVER. Just, why did they have to make him so useless sometimes. The scene where he was with both young and old Five, he just bullshitted around. LIKE I’M SORRY LUTHER BUT PLEASE. His power was quite confusing too? He got shot by the bullet but survived a nuclear missile huh?? Anyways, the actor playing him did a great job. There were scenes I really just wanted to sigh but Luther looked so cute like a lost puppy.

-Number 2/Diego: In the first few episodes, I was extremely iffy with him. Some of it came from the fact that season 1 Diego was just so ;-;. Anyways, his obsession to save Kennedy was a bit out of hand. I get it, he wanted to save a life he knew that was in trouble, especially one so important. But I wish he stopped to think first. I mean, he chose that over the end of the world HAHA. Mm though I suppose I think I started enjoying watching him more when he reunited with Mother? Speaking of the mother, his interactions with her were so cute. He loves her so much and just seeing her there alive..I don’t know he was more sympathetic. That Team Zero shit was so sweet even if it didn’t pull through. He became much sweeter though still an idiot. As always, he had daddy issues too and I wish we dwelled more into that. Seeing him vulnerable was nice. Also him entering the commission was so badass?? Like damn. I guess his character grew a bit more this season which I’m satisfied with.

-Number 3/Allison: I loved her so much this season. She was such a badass queen. There were rarely scenes I’d facepalm at. I think it’s because Ray brought out a much better side in her. She was the most stable of all the siblings but I don’t think that says much. Her marriage was a bit out of hand at one point, I’m glad she was able to fix it. HOWEVER, the scenes where she abused her power was very irritating. It was never mentioned again. They brought it up but didn’t do anything with it. That can be highly used against black people as a whole. She did that in a room full of white people and I can only think of the consequences that could leave for their movement. Or it will go unaddressed. But I hope that isn’t the case.

-Number 4/Klaus: I love this man. He’s one of my favorite characters as a whole. But. . . what the fuck happened this season? It’s like all his development by the end of season 1 was just tossed out the window. He was sober and although he didn’t like it, he was one of the ones who kept trying to bring their siblings to the problem. It’s just his sober self in season 2 just gave me vibes of his drunk self in season 1. I guess it’s more on his personality and who he is but it was so interesting to see him when he was trying. Instead, I watched him lead a cult. It shows that he’s really not the leadership kind because he doesn’t know what he’s doing with himself, better yet how is he going to lead a cult? I guess he needed some way to survive but damn. Also I thought Dave, if not his siblings, was going to be his first priority. I know he ended up finding Dave already but why was he after the cult. Klaus half the time he didn’t do anything. There was a big waste of power for Klaus because he wasn’t even able to use his to full capacity. There was that one shot where he was falling and caught by other ghosts which was the only time other ghosts were seen. The only time he used his power. The season 1 ending had such an OP Klaus but it led me to expect more from him this season. Like, remember that point where they were trying to reach Vanya but it was from Allison to Diego to Klaus to Ben. The part when it was Klaus’s turn, I really think he could’ve used his powers to have the ghosts push him. He was giving himself the talk and everything and then he just flew back only for Ben to just stare. And as seen, Ben wasn’t affected by the whoosh the ghosts thing could’ve worked. He ended up feeling a bit like a plot device for Ben this season. I really hope in season 3, he’ll be able to develop his powers and develop himself as a character. Also for the record, I cannot believe he didn’t tell anyone of Ben?? I remember that clip with the “Klaus, is Ben here?” and he responded with ghosts can’t time travel and jazz. I THOUGHT THAT WAS JUST A JOKE?? But he ended up n o t telling AT ALL. Like I love you Klaus but your brother misses your family too. I was just so frustrated at him this season.

-Number 5/Five: This boy is one of my other favorites. He’s just so fun to watch. I guess it does with the amount of times he warps and uses his powers. His development on his powers were 10/10. In terms of personality, he’s still the same old grumpy pants but the amount of times I wanted to reach the screen and shake him I swear. I know he rushes so much but I remember he was watching a stripper or singer or something in the place where Luther was and was that really the time? He needs to tell his siblings before rushing head first. Funny how he keeps saying let’s think of a plan but as soon as he has one he goes with it. The Reginald Hargreeves plan wouldn’t even be able to go if not for the invitation. I swear this boy always has something going on which is why it’s so fun to watch him all the time. He just wants to save his family. And he’s just throwing hands every time a plan fucks up it’s funny and then he starts a new one. I’m sure he blames himself a lot for getting his family stuck. I wish he had time to develop his mental state. But I understand he was busy all the time. Though to be honest, Allison is probably the only stable one, they all needs help. Hmm I’d say he grew a bit more from the first season, though again the first few episodes of this one were sorta infuriating because he was basically repeating what he did in the first. I hope he can finally rest in the third season or at least take a b r e a k(HAmiLton). They made him super badass already, I’d love to see more of it but I want to see him more when he gets to actually talk to his siblings about anything else. I look forward to his season 3 arc.

-Number 6/Ben: HE WAS SUCH A BEAUTIFUL CINNAMON ROLL THIS SEASON I LOVE HIM. The one iffy part was when he possessed Klaus and was about to have s e x in Klaus’s body and not give back his body LMFAO. Poor baby just wanted to feel it though. He missed it so much and he missed his family so much. HE ONLY GOT TO REUNITE WITH DIEGO AND VANYA. Both times, hit just as hard. Though Diego never asked about him again probably because Vanya told them all about how he...Ugh, I wish he was there more to interact with the other siblings. KLAUS THIS IS WHY YOU SHOULD’VE TOLDKFHJD. His scenes were so precious. My heart cried when he passed away to Heaven. He was just so gentle with Vanya. You’re my sister. AGH CHILLS. He was such a beautiful sibling to Vanya and I hate it so much how he wasn’t able to have more. He was a true hero. He should’ve had more scenes. I don’t know what season 3 is going to bring for the “new” Ben but he looks more aggressive and edgy than the old ones so I’m not going to have any expectations.

-Number 7/Vanya: This girl is always in such pain, it was nice to see her happy for once. Though I am a bit iffy with the relationship with her and Sissy because it looks like there’s an age gap but I don’t know, I’ll go more into it later. No, it’s not because they’re two girls, I’m bisexual myself. Anyways speaking of gender, most fans say she’s bisexual but I’d head canon her to be pan sexual more than bi. I feel like she really doesn’t give a fuck about who she is with as long as they love each other and that’s sweet. We stan representations. As for her character, hmm she was okay. She’s still unstable but in the end she’s just a hurt baby that’s been through a l o t and just wants a family. I’m glad she was able to use her powers more. High key Elsa vibes. She was not bad this season but I wish she knew how much she couldn’t bring them. The extent of the time travel world. But I know she just wanted love after having such a lack of it. I hope to see her get love she deserves in season 3. More specifically, self-love. Because these past 2 seasons, she’s been putting so much on that one person that I want to see what she does for herself. Maybe pick up that violin and go girl~

In terms of side characters,

*THEY PUT HAZEL THERE FOR TWO MINUTES AND THEN HE DIED. WHAT. I know it’s probably better that way but damn, he was one of my favorites. I’m glad he was able to live a peaceful life with Agnes. He deserved it

*RAY IS MY MAN I LOVE THIS MAN SO MUCH! He stays calm and collected most of the time. He does what’s right. He’s a much better choice than Luther. I’m sad we had to let him go but it was going to come sooner or later.

*Lila..She was such an intriguing character. Just, she was so dumb at some points, especially near the end. I wish she thought more analytically. I guess she’s like a more emotional female version of Five. Her fight with Five was pretty cool. She probably got with Diego because they’re mummy’s children HAHA. Her powers were so bad ass though. We’re prolly going to see more of her in the third season which I look forward to.

*Reginald Hargreeves, bruh are you an alien.

*Pogo.. He was cute but I thought we’d see more of him. But I mean he’s just a baby so I guess eh.

*Mom was beautiful, she DESERVES MORE SCENES INSTEAD OF EVERY 2 EPISODES FOR 2 MINUTES.

*The Handler was not bad I suppose. I mean I loved her in the first season. But here she wasn’t as terrifying anymore. She’s a hella good manipulator but of course it was going to bite her in the back. I was honestly looking forward to fish guy though. I hope she stays dead just so that we can see our future villains.

*Speaking of the fish, he was sort of useless. We didn’t get to see any action of him. He’s just a f i s h. We won’t ever know if he was as good at his job as the handler or what not but that’s because he did n o t h i n g. A F I S H.

*The Swedish villains, they were eh. Not gonna lie, the first few episodes or so, they were hella boring. Not as fun as Hazel(WHO THEY KILLED IN THE FIRST FEW MINS) and Cha Cha. But their sibling ship was really heart felt. And every time one died.. Just ;-;.

*Herb was such a precious soul. I hope he doesn’t die in season 3.

I think the problem was that some of the characters were just on standby half the time.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

RELATIONSHIPS

The way they treated and interacted with each other is what makes the story so appealing, the familial, platonic and romantic. The relationships here were fine but I just wanted to bring them up.

Romantic

-Allison and Ray: What a 9-10/10 couple. The reason why is because there’s a line Allison said that made me so...what? I remember when she reunited with Luther she said something along the lines of “I just, I needed something to hold on to. And Ray gave me that” SIS. That sounds like such REBOUND energy. It doesn’t sound like she chose Ray, it sounds like she needed someone to depend on and Ray was there. I’m sure their relationship grew eventually but to say that about him to her ex or whatever they are. She’s in a vulnerable state, and to say something as minor as I needed him does not seem healthy. Relationships shouldn’t always be a need-need relationship. Allison needs to be her independent person and fall in love when she’s ready. If she’s just doing it because she needs someone to hold onto. What kind of love is that? Aside from that note, their whole relationship is so precious. I love how much Ray stays by Allison but he doesn’t take her bullshit. Like he is strict with knowing the truth because he needs to know he can trust her and that she can trust him. And you know what, she pulled through and told him. Because she loves him. I’m glad they didn’t kill him off or separate them because of Luther. It’s sweet.

-Diego and Lila: I didn’t like it until we knew of who Lila was. Because honestly if Diego got with her, that’d reflect on how much he changed from dating a cop to a complete psycho. But no, there’s more depth in Lila which made her interesting. Their dance scene right after was so nice. It was like a fight for dominance and it reflected how they thought of each other. Though, when she started choosing Five over Diego it went downhill. Diego was so lost because Lila didn’t trust him with whatever shit. Lila was just going around playing mummy’s girl and getting flustered whenever the handler mentioned him. It made her look young. Then when she captured Diego and called him boyfriend I got so lost. Then later Diego calls them exes. THEN WE FIND OUT THEY’RE ALSO BORN ON THE SAME DATE. They’re not as bad as Luther and Allison but still, they could’ve been siblings. Their relationship goes up and down so I’m not really sure what to think. I don’t see Lila bringing out the better side of Diego. I only see Diego doing it. I think Patch was a better fit because she was emotionally stable. But maybe when Lila gets her shit together then perhaps??

-Vanya and Sissy: Uh...This is definitely going to be an unpopular opinion(im saying that as if most of what I said is not unpopular) but this relationship gave me eh vibes. Like I don’t really know what to say about this one. I’m all for LGBTQ+ representation and of course Vanya being happy but. I think, again, Vanya must be her own girl. She shouldn’t be someone to be protected or get validation from protecting. She should be her own girl fighting and figuring out herself. I think another iffy thing is Sissy was a mother who was stuck in a bad marriage. My thing with that trope is that usually, the love interest saving the mother is someone who’s ready to take them. Yes I know Sissy shouldn’t have to live unhappily. But depending on a girl who doesn’t have self-independence, emotionally unstable with her own unstable family. Yeah, no wonder Sissy didn’t come with. Just the deal is Vanya depended on her like a lost child with a mother. It looks motherly. I’m not judging from looks, I’m judging from the treatment. Plus, their first kiss, they were drunk. That’s a sign within itself. Yes, they didn’t regret it in the morning. But Sissy was in a vulnerable state. She was crying. And I guess I thought it was going to be eased in like “I’m really happy you’re in my life Vanya.” BWAM KISS. Instead it went like “You tell me how you let her go. Tell me and I’ll do it.” “Sissy I can’t--” KISS. THAT DOESN’T SOLVE THE PROBLEM, in fact she interrupted Vanya because she was so emotionally drained. All the emotions and weight of it, into that kiss. It’s not like a drunken confession, she’s crying about a problem beforehand. Not a problem on her sexuality, but a problem on her life. And... kissing doesn’t make all the pain go away. Running away doesn’t make the pain go away. I don’t understand the message this show is trying to give us for this but I don’t like it. I know they were aiming for simple life simple family but.. as said, it’s never going to be simple.

-Klaus and Dave: I just felt sad. This was so pitiful. They did them so dirty. Also, I know it’s not the show’s fault because they changed actors but Dave looked so young. In season 1, he looked about the same age as Klaus if not older.. In season 2, he looks like a precious baby boy. Like, I know they changed actors but I couldn’t get the vibe out of my head. But back to the main point. I feel like their relationship was sadder. Dave ended up going earlier. As well as he might avoid anyone who looks like Klaus because it would sort of be creepy. What hurt most is when Dave punched him. That hurts. Poor Klaus, again, he didn’t even get to say goodbye properly. He has to deal with losing him again but since we get less Klaus scenes this season, we can only speculate. I wish they could be together but they never could. One of the saddest love stories.

-Ben and Jill: I want Ben to be happy, I really do. But... he’s dead. He was doomed to have no love interest from the start. Though it is cute to see him crush over her. But the concept it a bit weird you know? He possessed Klaus to get to her and he was about to have sex in Klaus’s body. That says a l o t. Plus we didn’t really get to explore Jill as a character. So I didn’t really care about her and we prolly won’t ever. But I hope wherever Ben is now, he can vibe peacefully.

-Allison and Luther: I hate this. They’re siblings. It’s not all of them being under the same roof, it’s all of them being raised by someone who adopted them together. IT DOESN’T MATTER IF NOT BIOLOGICAL. I’m so glad it got called out this season. Though, it’s so hard to see them as just siblings now because of how often it gets called out. But no. just no.

-Sissy and Carl: Um. I don’t know what to think but both of them were unstable af. I wonder why Sissy married him in the first place if she didn’t want to commit to him. I guess Carl was a different person? Hmm, he manipulated her for sure but that’s because he wanted the family to stay together. Around the time he was about to shoot her that’s when it was clear they weren’t a fit at all. But I think Carl could have improved before that scene with Vanya. Fucking disgusting. But, honestly before that scene I couldn’t tell if he was genuine or not. Cause, he did look like he loved Sissy while Sissy would give off looks. It’s pitiful. But eh, this is the unhappy marriage trope so...

-Reginald and Grace: This was heart breaking. I genuinely loved seeing emotion on Reginald and Grace was a perfect match. When they broke up I AGH. I wish they had more moments.

Familial(I’m highlighting important ones but feel free to skip) There were less. and there was a LACK OF FIVE AND KLAUS. Their dynamic was one of my favorites in the first season.

-Luther and Vanya: I was hesitant in their reunion. Mainly due to the fact that we get a panel of Luther holding a gun. But, I’m glad he didn’t end up doing anything. I’m also glad he apologized. Their relationship is unsteady but it’s growing ish. But aside from the first few episodes, we don’t really get much. I’m just glad he’s not being shitty to her.

-Luther and Five: Ngl Luther’s incompetence gets made up from Five’s competence. It’s funny. When there were two five’s it was so f u n n y. Luther was just panicking everywhere. He was like “He hAs A pOiNt” and then like “oh no we’re going to kill him???!??!”. It’s cute I guess. Though when they first reunited, it was annoying as hell. I thought their dynamic was going to be lame but this wasn’t bad I suppose.

-Luther and Diego: Hehe. They are highkey two brain cells left energy. If I remember correctly, the first season contained them fighting over what to do or who’s “leader”. They didn’t have as much moments this season but I remember Diego chasing after Luther when Luther threw hands. It was cute in a sibling-y way. They were okay. I mean, as okay as any unstable family but it was nice seeing their meaningless little fights out of the way.

-Diego and Five: It was like arcs talking to each other. Diego was basically representing “Save Kennedy!” while Five was like “END OF THE WORLD”. Lucky for them that it was connected. But if it wasn’t, imagine that huge waste of time. Anyways, they were okay-ish. Five didn’t want to deal with Diego’s shit half the time but that’s just Five. Their connection grew after Diego went to the commission because I mean, they can now both relate. However, Diego only stayed there for a little bit while Five stayed there longer. And Diego was only recruited because his “girlfriend” wanted him. But either way, they now have something more to talk about.

-Diego and Ben: This was a cute heartfelt moment. And.. honestly I wanted more. Not just with Diego and Ben but with Ben and well EVERYONE. But at least this small moment was given. Just, Diego’s realization that it’s Ben. His dead brother. It hurt you know.

-Allison and Klaus: This duo I swear. I don’t really like it because I’d say these two are the chillest aside from Vanya. Their reunion was really sweet true but the way they dealt with problems? Allison is the more sane of the two yet Klaus’s influence helps her relax. However, Klaus is unstable and Allison didn’t really help him exactly. She just drank with him. Yes, she asked him how he was. But right after she goes to drinking. EVEN BEN WAS SMILING WHEN SHE PUT DOWN THE FLASK. And then she promoted more booze. That’s a way of coping for some people. But, I don’t think the time was right. Klaus was trying to be sober. I don’t think promoting what he’s not trying to be is a good idea, especially at that time. Then for Allison, I mean as Klaus said himself “Allison, your marriage is in trouble and your rally turned into a riot”. She shouldn’t be drinking either. She should be thinking of what to do. It doesn’t take until later.

-Allison, Vanya and Klaus: Their dance was really cute. I loved it so much. It’s what I wanted from season 2 in the first place. The siblings to have fun with no weight of the world on them. Allison and Vanya’s reunion was so sweet. I loved every second except the part where they got drunk and started to be like LeT’S coNfEss mY lOVe. But, it did get the plot along. I’m just happy they found solitude in each other while their other brothers were a fidgety mess.

-Five, Diego and Luther: Speaking of that fidgety mess, these three were all over the place. There were some funny moments like Five being so done and changing his clothes. While Diego and Luther were like h u h ? And they also had moments where they talked about daddy issues. Also when Luther and Diego found Elliot dead and threatened a person until Five came was hilarious.

-Klaus and Ben: Ngl, I found this relationship very bitter because KLAUS WOULDN’T LISTEN. Ben keeps trying to say something or prove what he should do but Klaus keeps ignoring his remarks. It’s very unhealthy especially when Klaus has the upper hand. He doesn’t even give Ben the chance to interact with his other siblings. While Ben misses them dearly. It’s heartbreaking to watch.

-Five and Vanya: I LOVED THAT MOMENT WHERE THEIR POWERS BATTLED. Even if it was for a split second, it looked so cool. Anyways, I don’t have much to say on this one because they didn’t interact as much I’d say but it was chill. A chill siblingship. Though, Five was being rude when he completely disregarded the fact that Vanya has people she care about in that time. He was too focused on the end of the world and that’s okay but he has to understand his siblings. I’m not using it against him though, he doesn’t exactly know how to read signs. But when you put them together by the end, it’s nice seeing Vanya having more control of who she is instead of being pushed around.

-Five and Reginald: It’s interesting. Five hasn’t seen his father in a long time and there he is. And, he’s scared or if not scared then hesitant, really hesitant. His father is someone who treated him like shit but he is someone who also raised him and has the knowledge to who he is.Of all the people, he looks to him when there’s no other choice. It’s interesting to see this because Five rarely hesitates. And seeing a man who has no real threat to him in that timeline but he knows how much he has hurt him. It’s breathtaking. Among all his children, I’d say Reginald gravitates to Five the most because as said he’s the most reasonable. As most theories for season 3 would suggest, Reginald probably chooses different kids because he’s seen how fucked up his kids are in the past. But, he talked to Five and I just wonder why he’d not choose him. I guess just speculation that Five was also fucked up. Anyhow, their bar scene was nice. It was simple yet had a lot of weight to it, especially to Five. Another scene I liked is when Five was spying on Reginald in the closet thing and Reginald stared at it. It was a shot of them looking at each other with Reginald having the authority while Five hides. It’s a nice frame to think on and what it means for them.

-Vanya and Ben: I FUCKING LOVED THIS. Even if it was one scene, I could replay it all day. Because Vanya, a woman who has been numerously ignored or pushed aside as a threat by her own family, finally has one family member who thoroughly cares...And he’s dead. She’s been through so much and no one ever seems to take her as her own person which is so depressing to watch. Until Ben. Ben was so peaceful and gentle with her. He knew she could explode at any moment but he also knew that she’s hurting and scared so God damn much. She feels like there’s something wrong with her and she doesn’t even feel like she’s deserving to live. And Ben took the time to phrase it gently but had so much weight to it because of how true it is. “You aren’t a monster, you’re my sister.”He reassures her that she is not something to be afraid of, not a ticking bomb. But a person who he loves deeply, his sister. He reassures her she’s not alone. He makes sure of that and he lets her know he believes in her. I just loved that so much. He was the only one who reached out when it felt like everyone was against her. And she opened up to him because he was the only one who would listen. That’s so touching and I’m so glad they had that moment. I’d say that was the best moment in the whole season. Their relationship says it all in that one scene.

-All of them: It would be such crack energy + daddy issues whenever they were all in the same room. It was entertaining but half the time they fought or bickered so it sometimes didn’t go anywhere. I wish they had more fight scenes though because they’d look united as a family whenever they were against the same enemy. But I suppose we’ll have to wait for season 3 to see that.

Other

-Five and the Handler: The Handler character gives major pedo vibes. So it’s very uncomfortable when we watch her have those little touches on Five. It’s very meticulous in showing their relationship. Five doesn’t want anything to do with her while the handler just keeps getting closer. Their fights back and forwards remind me of Sherlock and Moriarty. It’s all big game and gamble. Though for Five and the Handler it’s less of a game. It’s fun to watch I suppose but I would’ve liked to see another force opposing Five aside from just The Handler all the time. She’s a good contrast to his character though. He always refers to her when there’s nothing else. And we get to see his soft side with his siblings and how he wants to keep saving them and how he always emphasizes it.

-Five and Lila: Half the time if not most, Five wanted nothing to do with her. It was hilarious in a sense that Five was oblivious for most of it. Lila was a pained girl who had anger to take out. And Five was there, being an asshole. Yeah, in the mental side, Five was a bitch while Lila being emotional is not a good match. Their power fights were really hard-core, I loved it. Their original connection was through the handler and Diego then morphed into the whole killing parents thing. It was fun.

-Five and Five: This was hilarious. Too fucking good. Though, it gave me headaches thinking of all the times where if this Five dies then... Plus this time older Five has the correct formula now which could change? But that’s for a different timeline now or universe. I enjoyed watching them. When they were “fighting” it played one of my childhood bops. They oppose each other so well that it’s so comedic. It’s a nice touch.

-The Handler and Lila: Mother Gothel and Rapunzel or Thanos and Gamora vibes-- Anyhow, their relationship was very manipulative but hey that’s the handler’s specialty. It was okay, just a regular villain deceiving lost child trope. Though this one had more loyalty on Lila. For, this one had more love put into it. I’m not sure exactly if the handler loved Lila for real but we see shots where she takes care of Lila and takes pictures on her in a pretty dress. That’s cute which is understandable to why Lila is always so hesitant in picking between what she wants and what her mother wants. But as seen in the first half, she chooses Five. She chooses her mother. That’s a strong bond they got even for the handler. Though I guess it’s safe to say that the handler doesn’t really care about Lila if she was ready to kill her. I suppose Lila just brought amusement and help but as soon as she’s useless, gone. (Same with Mother Gothel and maybe Thanos?)Honestly though I got confused at one point because didn’t the Handler badmouth Lila’s parents? She said “Her mother who rescued her from those gin-addled, neglectful parents--”. If Lila didn’t believe in those words, she would’ve interrupted. If Lila did, then why did she care so much if they died? Yes, they are still her parents. But, she was so defensive over who killed them in the second half of the season. She kept calling them innocent and such. It was a bit out of the blue I suppose but eh.

-Ray and Luther/Klaus: It’s important to note that Ray is fighting for black rights as well as his wife. Now, to find out that she might’ve lived in a “white” world is a big shock to him. I can understand why that anger was built. I’m not going to go into detail because I’m sure others can explain it better than I can but in general, Ray felt betrayed by Allison. His expectation of her once he sees Luther and Klaus. Yet, Klaus is more likable since you know he helps him out of jail. They had cute moments in jail too. Luther looks lost af and I just don’t like how aggressive Ray becomes when he sees him.

-Harlan and Vanya: It’s probably setting up for the future plots but I found it unnecessary to give Harlan Vanya’s powers. honestly during the whole time he was screaming and shit, I was just like...Is that...Will from stranger things?? BECAUSE BOTH OF THEM WERE POSSESSED BY SOMETHING OUT OF THEIR CONTROL. But anyways their relationship is okay, Vanya helps him calm down but I guess it would’ve been nice to see more bonding.

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PLOT

-There were so many arcs-too many. To the point where it was such a jumble of what was going on. From activism to queer rights to daddy issues to mafia to mental asylum to a broken family to more broken families to etc. All leading to the major plot of “the world is ending”. I get it, they were trying to make the story more eventful. However, some of them were pressing issues that should be used more than a plot device to move the story along.

-I know each character was separated to shine individually but I wanted to see more group work. We already saw their individuality in season 1, this was just a different environment. The only group work where they all were looking badass was in a timeline that ceased to exist(Specifically the one where they fought during the Soviet Union-Us War). They sort of worked together in the end but LMFAO half the time some of them were pinned or just not doing anything.

-I have to say, this whole season just gave me a hardcore repeat of the first season. Again, all the siblings are separated. Again, Five goes looking for them but then goes and fucks around finding plans/leads. Again, the siblings fuck around. Again, the commission tries to hunt them down. Again, they are tricked to killing each other. Again, Vanya is the cause but this time they were able to mend it. Again Again Again Again. Just please. I was really looking forward to seeing something new. I wanted to see their younger selves because by the end of season 1 they turned younger?? But instead we get a repeat of season 1 with a bunch of differences that weren’t able to be fully expounded. It’s like this season was a plot device itself for season 3. It was used to find out more characters and find out more of the universe. While the mental stability remains the same.

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NOTES

~Sissy’s family. I don’t know what to say about this family. It’s obviously fucked up. Harlan is just like confused majority of the time. While Sissy and Carl have so many issues. I really had hope for Carl until that homophobic remark and the fact that he tried to shoot his wife. I know I know it’s obvious to see Carl as the asshole immediately but it would’ve been nice to see a change of pace where Carl is worth staying for: He cares about his son, he wants to keep the family together and he cares whether or not Sissy still loves him. And therefore giving Sissy more of a hard option. It adds more depth. But eh.

~Transitions/Editing. I guess it’s the same as the first season but for me, the transitions felt more abrupt and off-timing. Like, sometimes it would show Luther after 2 scenes when I’ve been waiting for Five after four scenes. It made my head spin, especially with the amount of arcs. But I guess that’s normal. As for editing, the part where Ben possessed Klaus, I really wished they made it Ben sooner because for 2 minutes I’m just staring at Klaus. It was okay though.

~The commission. As said earlier, the villains weren’t as entertaining. I loved the three brothers but to say they were more fun to watch than Hazel and Chacha? Mm. Not it for me. More heartbreaking sure. But not more fun. Anyhow, the commission seems like one big mess within itself. It’s so easy to go in their building and mess up time. I mean, what kind of security do they have? No one was protecting board control room thing. I’m not undermining Diego but ?? It seems like high school where people can just slip in and out easily. Also, the amount of commission that died from that last fight. That was a big yikes. I understand their role in the story but it was very undermining to watch them.

~Previous season 2 hopes. I really thought they were going down the child route. Like, I thought Five would bring them back to the time where they all were still children aka still being raised. This would include Ben being alive. This wouldn’t keep the same pressure as the apocalypse but instead a new one on how to prevent it but still being years from that time. They know it’s Vanya and this time they’ll take the time to understand her. They’ll take the time in understanding each other. Frankly, some of my favorite parts of this season would be when they’re bonding. Because they rarely get to do that in season 1. This season 2 would be bonding-centric, while dealing with their powers. I mean, aside from those few flashbacks in season 1, how badass would it be to see it in real time? We would get to explore their capabilities. It would make them look united, it would make their mental issues seem addressed and it would let them have the playful youth they deserve. I guess that’s more of a fanfiction idea though. Most fans probably wants more action than affection so I understand why they took this route. Probably because they wanted to keep the same actors too. But still, it would’ve been nice.

~Season 3 hopes. Not going to lie, my season 3 hopes are probably a bit similar to season 2. The only difference is age. I want their mental issues to be a d d r e s s e d. With the lack of apocalypse, there’s going to be less pressure on their shoulders. Especially Five. I’m looking forward to what he’s going to do in his free time. I’m looking forward to see what they all do without that much pressure on their shoulders. They’re obviously going to be more bonded now but will they just keep away again? As for the new group, I honestly thought they were going to be them but raised differently but I guess not. There’s definitely going to be more of an interest on Ben. It’s a whole new one and I’m interested in seeing how their powers and dynamics work. As well as interactions with the OG UA. Though, I feel like it won’t be major in terms of them going against each other. Like, of course they will have one point because I’m sure some of them are competitive af. But, it’ll be more fun than more of a problem. I’m sure they’re all going to unite as one against an opposing force. Maybe an alien arc. Reggie being an alien is also probably going to get addressed and will also maybe become a problem about alien invasion, unless they leave that for later seasons. Lila is also going to come back I bet. I hope no more handler. And if the commission is involved in any way, make them more fun to see in their world building. I’m looking forward to seeing them all though.

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Overall, as most movies or shows, I think the Umbrella Academy is a wonderful concept with so many interesting stories to tell but execution could need more work. As well as script. Though I’m not saying it’s all bad. Of course there were moments I’d laugh at, of course moments my heart ached and of course moments I loved. It’s not all bad unlike-- Anyways, it was a nice adventure and I’m looking forward to what season 3 has to bring~~

#Umbrella Academy #Umbrella Academy Season 2 #Umbrella Academy Season 2 Review #Umbrella Academy Season 2 Rant #Rant #iWISHTHEYHADMOREFIVEANDKLAUSISTG #Spoilers

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dogbearinggifts · 5 years ago

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“Dad Sent Me to the Moon” vs. “Because Dad Made Me”

How Luther and Vanya Talk About Trauma, Part One

In this fandom, I’ve heard a lot about Luther and Vanya.

Most of the things I’ve heard about Luther are negative. He constantly whines about his time on the Moon. He won’t shut up about how he had it worse than everyone else. He invalidates his siblings’ trauma. Meanwhile, Vanya is spoken of as if she’s his polar opposite: a kind, timid woman who genuinely did have it worse than everyone else but suffers nobly in silence while quietly ensuring her siblings are okay. I wanted to see if these perceptions were accurate, so I decided to take an empirical approach. During my sixth rewatch, I noted every time Luther mentions the Moon or Vanya mentions her exclusion, as well as how each of them responds to hearing of someone else’s trauma.

I want to stress that I am not out to throw one character under the bus. I’m not out to prove that Vanya is the actual worst and that Luther is the literal best, or that Vanya is amazing and Luther is awful. I’ve just heard a lot about both characters from within the fandom and I want to see how strongly the show itself supports the fandom’s perceptions. I won’t be examining every quote they have, and I won’t be looking at every scene they’re in. A deep study of both characters would certainly be fun, but for now, I’m only interested in how they address their own trauma and how they respond to the trauma of others.

Note: I’ve chosen not to include Vanya’s book as a mention of her trauma. While her book does indeed bring it up and examine it in detail, I wasn’t sure how to quantify it for my own purposes. Do I count it as a single mention, because she only wrote it down once, and thus risk underestimating its impact? Do I count each sale as a separate mention, guesstimate the number based on how many copies sold it takes to reach bestseller status, and therefore grossly inflate her numbers? Because the book is impossible to quantify with any sort of accuracy, I’ve chosen to leave it aside. Rather, I will keep my trauma counts limited to what Luther and Vanya say to friends or family members. This also means I won’t include her voice-over while we see her writing her book, or the moments where she reads excerpts aloud.

I’ve also chosen to write down the exact quote each time Luther or Vanya mentions their respective trauma or respond to someone else’s trauma. I’ll share my analysis, but I also want to give you all the chance to see each quote for yourselves and make your own judgments. You’re welcome to disagree with my conclusions and take or leave them as you see fit. However, because these analyses will become lengthy in places, I plan to do only a few episodes at a time.

Episode 1: We Only See Each Other at Weddings and Funerals

No explicit mentions of trauma from either Luther or Vanya. It’s established that Luther lived on the Moon for a while and that Vanya was raised to believe she had no powers and excluded from the family dynamic as a result, but neither one addresses what they went through.

Episode 2: Run Boy Run

Following the episode opener—a flashback to the day Five time-traveled and accidentally got stuck in the apocalypse—we hear Five share the harrowing details of his time there. Eating cockroaches, subsisting on scavenged food, learning the hard way that Twinkies do in fact expire—it’s pretty awful stuff. After Vanya takes it in stunned silence, we have this exchange:

Five: You think I’m crazy. Vanya: No, it’s just…it’s a lot to take in. Five: Exactly what don’t you understand? Vanya: Why didn’t you just time-travel back? Five: Gee, wish I’d thought of that. Time-travel is a crapshoot. I went into the ice and never acorn-ed. You think I didn’t try everything to get back to my family? Vanya: If you grew old there, you know, in the apocalypse, then how come you still look like a kid? Five: I told you already. I must have got the equations wrong. Vanya: I mean, Dad always used to say that time-travel could mess up your mind. Maybe that’s what’s happening?

This is our first onscreen mention of trauma, and Vanya invalidates it. However, there are some factors to consider:

Five’s story is pretty bizarre. “Yeah, after I ran away from home and time-traveled, I got stuck in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, lived there for 40 years or so, ate cockroaches and bad Twinkies, and then I jumped right back here but because math failed me almost as much as Dad failed at parenting I still look just like I did the day I left. You got any booze?”

There is no evidence to corroborate his story. He looks exactly the way he did when he left, and he has no way to prove he visited the future at all. The most logical conclusion here is that he spent a year at most figuring out how to return and wound up jumping ahead to 17 years after his disappearance.

As we see in the flashback, Five has always been arrogant and headstrong, growing angry when corrected. His anger and impatience toward Vanya’s insinuations that he’s lost his mind are not a reliable indication that he’s telling the truth; if anything, Vanya is well within reason to assume she’s edging too close to a truth he’s not ready to face.

Reginald Hargreeves was a terrible parent. But he was also a very smart man who knew more about his children’s powers than they themselves did. When he said that time-travel could mess up one’s mind, Vanya had every reason to assume he knew what he was talking about.

Reginald often used “YOU CHILDREN MUST ONE DAY SAVE THE WORLD FROM AN IGNOMINIOUS END” to scare his kids into doing the dishes. Not only has Vanya probably had enough of that talk to make her decide the world is going to die a natural death billions of years after hers, but it wouldn’t be unreasonable for her to assume Five’s time-travel-addled mind latched onto those doomsday threats and twisted them into something truly strange.

So, yes, Vanya does invalidate Five’s trauma, suggesting it’s all in his head. But when your choices of explanation are “my brother time-traveled before he was ready and it messed up his mind” or “my brother time-traveled to an apocalypse that’s going to happen in 8 days, lived there for 40 years without ever trying to get back, and now looks like a 13-year-old kid because he got the math wrong,” the former is easier to believe than the latter.

Additionally, we see she genuinely cares for Five. His sudden reappearance, his talk of an impending apocalypse, his story that to her has holes large enough to drive a Volkswagen through—all of that has got to be terrifying. It’s clear she’s not invalidating his trauma out of any sense of malice, but rather concern. If he’s a victim of time-travel messing up his mind, she wants him to get the help he needs (as evidenced by her recommending a therapist later). Her invalidation of his trauma isn’t right, but it’s also a human response that comes from a place of genuine concern and good intentions.

It’s also worth noting that, the very next day, she returns to the Academy to apologize for how she responded to his story. She does recommend a therapist, but only when Five says “Maybe you were right, maybe it was all in my head.”

A few scenes later, we get Vanya’s first mention of her trauma.

Allison: No offense, Vanya, if I wanted advice, it wouldn’t be from you. Vanya: What’s that supposed to mean? Allison: You don’t have a child. You’ve never even been in a relationship. Vanya: That’s not true. Allison: So you know what it’s like to love someone like this? Like, when you’re apart from her, you can’t breathe? Like you would die—and I mean, actually die, to know she’s okay and happy? I mean, you separate yourself from everything and everyone, you always have. Vanya: Because Dad made me. Allison: Did Dad make you write that book about us, too? Pause You’re an adult now, Vanya. You don’t get to blame your problems on anyone but yourself.

The first thing to note about this exchange is that, although it’s Vanya’s first mention of her own trauma, it’s Allison who brings it up first. The second is that when she brings up her trauma, it’s as an explanation for her behavior: I separate myself from everything and everyone because Dad made me.

Vanya is definitely sympathetic here. I’m not going to argue she isn’t. She tries to be nice to her sister, catches her when she’s distressed, and gets reamed out for the attempt. That’s a shitty thing for Allison to do, which she later acknowledges.

However, there’s also their history to consider: Allison is a movie star. As I’m sure we all know by now, image is everything to the rich and famous. I don’t mean that as a jab at their vanity (although vanity is certainly involved, more often than not) but as a fact: They are the product, and their image is part of the advertising. Everything they do in public (and much of what they do in private) is pounced on by the paparazzi and spun into the next big story. And this isn’t always fair to them; a single misspoken word can set off rumors that come back to bite them in the ass.

And Vanya wrote a tell-all book about how Allison treated her as a child.

As we see from the intro sequence in Episode 1, it seems Vanya’s autobiography hasn’t kept Allison off the red carpet. But it would have certainly hurt her public image. While it’s true we don’t know everything Vanya put in her autobiography, we do know Vanya harbors a lot of bitterness and resentment toward her family. We know she sees her siblings as near-strangers who had an easier time of it than she did at best, superpowered copycats of their father at worst. From the reactions we see later on—Diego taping Vanya’s author photo to a punching bag, Ben saying “I can’t believe she said that!” as Klaus shushes him—it’s safe to assume she did not say kind things about her siblings in that book.

If the things Vanya said about Allison matched the things Allison later says about herself—that she used her power to get everything she wanted as a kid, that she grew up spoiled because of it—then that would not have done any favors for her public image. And the paparazzi would have gone apeshit for it. Yes, Allison is an incredibly popular actor, but that doesn’t mean the press wouldn’t have turned on her the second they got a juicy morsel about her past. I imagine her having to field many uncomfortable questions from trashy reporters while out for lunch with friends, having an interview about her upcoming film suddenly turn tense when the interviewer said “Now, Allison, your sister—who none of us even knew existed up to this point—wrote about you in her book, and I’m sure I speak for all of us when I say I want to know more about….” There’s even a chance Vanya’s autobiography contributed to Patrick’s continuing antagonism toward her, since reading a book detailing Allison’s childhood power abuse could have convinced him his wife had always been bad, right from the cradle. (Or it could have fostered suspicion toward his wife and led him to keep a closer eye on her and therefore is the reason why he was close to Claire’s bedroom the night he saw Allison Rumor her, but that’s another theory for another time.)

You might say she deserved it. You might say she’d set herself up to fall and that all Vanya did was push that first domino over. You could even say her house of cards needed to topple, since part of her perfect life involved running roughshod over her own daughter’s free will, and possibly even Rumoring her husband into falling in love with her. Those arguments are absolutely fair, but they’re not my point. My point is, Allison’s harsh words to Vanya in this scene don’t come on her out of the blue. There’s a painful history there—painful for the both of them—and Allison harbors a lot of unresolved anger toward her sister for what she wrote in her book. And I don’t think that anger is unfounded, just as I don’t think Vanya’s resentment toward Allison is unwarranted. What Allison does in this scene is shitty, but Vanya has already done something shitty to her, in retaliation for shit she went through as a kid, and on and on the chain of pain goes. Vanya is far from guiltless in their relationship, but that does not make Allison’s lashing out at her okay.

And this is getting pretty long, so I’ll cut things short here. I’m going to list the count for trauma mentions/reactions below—and since I’ve seen this show multiple times over, I know it’s going to change; so don’t take the fact Vanya’s count is higher than Luther’s as an indictment of her. It’s just where we are at the end of Episode 2.

Own Trauma: Vanya 1, Luther 0 Trauma of Others: Vanya 1, Luther 0

Enjoying this series? Read on to Part Two.

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umbrellalesbian · 6 years ago

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as someone who’s worked at two different independently owned coffee shops, one small town, and one super popular in the city, I can confirm that sober Klaus would make a FANTASTIC barista

- Klaus would be better off at a busier, more popular cafe because downtime means more time to think. He loooves to keep busy and never gets in trouble for just standing around ever

- he’s very creative and is always the one to make up the drink of the month, and even has a few regulars who come in and just tell him to make whatever he feels like, they trust it’ll be good

- Literally every other person who works at the cafe says Klaus is their favourite coworker. He pays attention to them and remembers their favourite drinks and stories about their families, and makes them feel heard. Of course, he makes them laugh so hard they have to hide in the back sometimes. Shifts pass faster and happier when working with him

- He hates dish bin the least out of everyone who works there, because you can play loud music and it’s fast, mindless work

- klaus doesn’t even like coffee. He’ll drink fun espresso drinks when he’s playing around, but he sticks more to steamers and tea lattes and Italian sodas. His go to drink is a chocolate chai latte, which everyone says is gross until they try it.

- his shifts are always scheduled to be on till or bar, as opposed to the back, because everyone knows he’s very personable and is the reason a lot of customers come back. He’s actually really good at small talk, he doesn’t even have to force or fake it.

- There are more than a few regulars who come by so often they think of Klaus as a friend. He’ll sit with them on his lunch break and chat their ear off about the randomest stuff, and can have their drink ready within 5 seconds of seeing them walk into the cafe

- Headcanon Klaus has adhd which makes him great at multitasking. That, paired with the fact that he likes to busy himself, makes him really good under pressure when there’s a line out the door. He whips drinks out like it’s nothing while still keeping casual conversation with the lady who’s hot chocolate he’s steaming.

- Klaus is soooo flirty with like every single customer around his age who doesn’t immediately give him the vibe they won’t like it. He makes everyone blush and giggle and almost drop their change. ‘Medium latte to go for the handsome man in a suit’ said with a wink makes suit man a regular for life.

- Not for lack of trying, Klaus isn’t very good in the kitchen. He enjoys it enough and doesn’t complain when he’s (rarely) scheduled for it, he just never really got the hang of kitchen. Spending a large majority of his life scavenging for food and rarely ever having his own kitchen to cook food in, the ability to cook past a few basic skills isn’t something that comes naturally. He’s getting better though!

- Klaus is surprisingly good at latte art. It took him a while to get a hang of, and he was bouncing off the walls the first time he made a simple heart. He can do hearts and is good at a weird zig zag pattern he kinda made up. He’s working on Rosetta’s but they’re proving to be much harder. Every now and then he accidentally makes a phallic symbol with the foam and it makes his day.

- Everyone who works at the cafe knows the other Hargreeves. Half of them know from growing up reading about the umbrella academy, and half of them just know from Klaus getting super excited when they come in. Diego drinks either a black Americano, or a mocha, depending on how he feels that day. Luther doesn’t drink coffee at all, and orders any kind of tea. Vanya drinks black coffee and chai lattes, and Allison drinks matcha lattes and mocha frappes. Five is the most frequent customer of them all, and obviously just drinks his black coffee, occasionally an americano. He still complains about the coffee, but keeps coming back anyway.

- The coffee shop gives their employees free food and drink while on shift and sometimes it makes Klaus emotional - he hasn’t had such a reliable, consistent source for food for years. He never says no to extra food, like slightly burnt muffins or damaged cookies. Everyone knows to never throw them out but to put them aside for Klaus

- he’s really good at dealing with the homeless and high/drunk people that come in. There’s quite a lot of them since the cafe is in a popular downtown area. He’s always very kind and as giving as he’s allowed to be (and more) and knows exactly what to say when they can all tell the situation is about to get to be a bit much. He’s only good at the talking part though, another coworker has to be the one to escort troublesome people out, and klaus doesn’t like to watch that part.

- Klaus just really loves his job, and his coworkers and customers really love him too

#klaus hargreeves #the umbrella academy #umbrella academy #robert sheehan #klaus hargreeves imagine #the seance #mine

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fanficsaremylifeline · 5 years ago

Text

And the Oscar goes to...

On AO3:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/21384301

*****

Klaus

Being in some rehab-psych ward sucked. Yes, going through withdrawal was the worst, but Klaus knew his way around a rehab-ward, he'd been enough of them to find ways to keep sobriety at bay.

Unfortunately not enough to keep the number of ghosts down. And there were a lot of them here. At least they weren't all that gorey, mostly suicide by hanging themselves or slitting their wrists. They came with more than enough psychological issues, though; their need to talk topped even that of Mildred, who roamed the halls of the Academy. Klaus got to spend most of his youth listening to countless stories about her cats. That they ate her face after she died didn't seem to bother Mildred all that much.

The one ghost Klaus was glad kept on sticking around was Ben. Of course, never getting rid of your brother, who didn't necessarily support your lifestyle, could border on annoying, but Klaus was pretty sure he didn't want to know where he'd be without Ben. What sucked about being in rehab was that he couldn't talk with Ben though. Having a conversation with his dead brother would get him quite a few days extra, all that under constant scrutiny, thusly denying him the chance for that little kick the pain meds, he could swipe from the nurses, offered. Klaus had learned that the hard way.

So Klaus just sat in the common room, played with a fidget spinner he found under some cupboard as he tried to ignore the ghosts that currently tried to get his attention. He sort of watched two others battling out at checkers, which was unfortunately mind-numbingly boring, and Klaus wouldn't be able to keep the haunting at bay all that much longer. Until one ghost in particular drew all his attention.

“DUDE! CHECK IT OUT!” Ben cried out all of a sudden and pointed at the TV, Klaus had mostly been ignoring up until now. “It's Allison!”

“What?” Klaus turned so suddenly, even the checkers guys stopped their game. It took Klaus a moment to properly focus on the tiny screen where some awards show was playing. And no kidding, one of the nominees that were being read out was Allison Hargreeves.

“Everybody quiet!”, he yelled. “And turn this damn thing up!”

“Yo Klaus, you alright?”

“That's my sister!”, he explained with the widest grin.

“DAMN!” And everybody in the little room had their eyes glued to the screen; even the ghosts were quiet and watching, as some actor (a 4 tops in Klaus' opinion though he's had worse...) opened the envelope and announced to the camera: “And the Academy Award for best actress goes to...”

*****

Diego

Fucking Police Academy. Diego wouldn't do that to himself all that much longer. The only reason he hadn't given up just yet was Eudora, and her whole being just lighting up his soul. Or that vacant place in his chest where he'd have one, if it weren't for old bastard Hargreeves...

He tried to ignore the guys at the gym calling out for him and instead head straight for his boiler room and the whiskey he had in the cupboard. But one remark had him stop. “Hey Diego, isn't that your sister?”

He turned to the counter upon which was the little old TV, about as crappy, dirty and rundown as the rest of this damn place. And, sure enough, there was Allison. “What's that then?”, he asked around the group that had collected in front of the screen.

“She's your sister, shouldn't you know?”, one guy laughed.

“Trust me we don't share more than a birthday, last name and our horrible upbringing.”

“There was your teenage-mutant-ninja-stuff though.”

“And the fact that there is no more Umbrella Academy should really explain enough.” And that was the last thing, Diego'd say about that .

The last time he and Allison had spoken was on their birthday, via a five-minute phone call. That was about four months ago and Diego would not be surprised if they wouldn't talk until their next one. The only sibling Diego regularly ran into and looked out for was Klaus and – in extension of that – Ben in a way. And of course, there was Mum. Thankfully, Reginald was a creature of habit, which meant that Diego could visit her without running into the old bastard.

The presenting actor on screen got out a big golden envelope and stared straight into the camera as he announced: “And the Academy Award for best actress goes to...”

*****

Vanya

Vanya was glued to her screen all night long. She even called in sick to rehearsal just so she could watch the Oscars. Not that she'd care about actors and their accomplishments, but ever since the nominations were announced, with one of them being Allison, Vanya had marked that day on her calender.

The hadn't spoken since their birthday. Vanya had sent all of the siblings a text, but Allison was the only one not just sending a short text back, but actually calling Vanya. It wasn't that long or deep a conversation, even though she didn't bring it up, Allison didn't exactly care about Vanya's book, which was probably the reason everybody avoided her. Though they already avoided her when they were kids, so by writing her story she didn't exactly have too much to lose and didn't really lose all that much. Except maybe for the last shred of respect her siblings had for her.

Vanya still cared deeply for them. Especially with Allison she shared more of a relationship; maybe being the only two girls bonded them in a way that she just couldn't with the brothers. And so she tried to follow Allison's career as best she could; went to every of her movies and was so proud of her sister and what she had achieved.

And now it would be announced. Vanya sat mere centimetres from his screen as the actor opened the envelope and looked straight into the camera. “And the Academy Award for best actress goes to...”

*****

Allison

“And the Academy Award for best actress goes to...”

This was it. This was the moments, Allison had been working for, ever since the first possibility of ever being able to leave the Umbrella Academy had presented itself. And it was nerve-wrecking. Allison's stomach did backflips and she couldn't take the suspense anymore. She'd rather not be the winner instead of having to wait even a second longer.

“ALLISON HARGREEVES!”

Time stopped for a moment, as her brain worked on figuring out what she just heard. She won. SHE WON! The cheering and applause came back to her as Patrick pulled her to her feet and put a quick kiss on her cheek. Like in a trance, or automated, Allison made her way towards the stage.

And before she really knew what happened, she stood in front of the microphone with an Oscar, HER Oscar in the hand and she couldn't help but smile at the masses of people looking up at her, expecting a heartfelt speech. Well, from the heart she'd speak.

“Thank you, so, so much! I am incredibly honoured and... I'm not gonna start naming people, because there are too many that I'd like to thank, so to everybody who I ever had the luck to work with; everybody who ever gave me a shot, it is thanks to you I get to stand up here, so from the bottom of my heart, thank you! But there are two people I especially need to thank, and those are my husband Patrick and my darling Claire. I love you both so much more than I ever thought was possible and it's you I want to dedicate this award to. Thank you all so much!”

Under loud applause, Allison went back to her place, where Patrick awaited her with the widest smile. “I'm so proud of you, love”, he whispered as he put his arm around her shoulder and pulled her in for a kiss.

After that, the night was a blur. The afterparty was great fun, but it felt all so very unreal and it would probably take Allison a day or two, or five until it would all really sink in that she was an Academy Award winning actress!

Allison put off checking her messages until late the next afternoon, mentally preparing herself for an onslaught of Congratulations. Even all her (living and earth-based) siblings had messaged her and it made Allison somehow happier than the other 127 texts she had gotten. She hadn't told any of her family about her nomination. They weren't close, they spoke on their birthday and maybe on Christmas, but that was it. Klaus was the only one who had ever visited her in LA, and that was mostly so someone could keep an eye on him while Diego was otherwise occupied. She never asked what he did that week and Diego never told, so...

The one sibling she would have liked to tell though, was sitting on the moon, doing research for dad, far out of reach. At least she sometimes could get an update via Pogo, or ask him to deliver a message to Luther, but it wasn't really that great a system. Maybe it was better that way, though. She was married, had a wonderful daughter and The Umbrella Academy was in the past; never more than now it was clear that her future was here in LA, and that she belonged here.

Still, they grew up together, and seeing messages from her family was always wonderful as seldom as it happened.

Pogo: Dear Allison, me and your mother are so proud of you! Congratulations on your win. I have informed Master Luther, as soon as he is in touch I will forward his message to you. With all the best from the Umbrella Academy, Pogo and Mum

Allison: Thanks Pogo, I appreciate it! Say hi to Mum and Luther from me :)

Diego: Saw you on the tv! Congrats, sis, you deserve it :)

Allison: Thanks, Diego :)

Klaus: OMGOMGOMGOMG!!!! CONGRATS! Me and Ben are sooooooooo proud and stoked and happy for you, it's sooooo amazing, we're about to start the celebratory conga line!!! And by the way, you looked stunning. Any chance I could borrow those shoes next time we run into each other? ;)

Allison: The shoes are yours if I get that skirt back you stole from me when you were in LA... ;)

Vanya: Hey Allison, I just want to wish you good luck tonight. I'll be glued to the screen :)

Vanya: Congrats, I never doubted it for a moment! I'm really happy for you, you did so well!

Allison: Thanks, Vanya, for thinking of me xoxo

Well, things between the Hargreeves' might not be perfect, downright cold at times, but what family was perfect? And maybe, just maybe, it was time for Allison to take a holiday back home...

#the umbrella academy #tua #allison hargreeves #klaus hargreeves #ben hargreeves #diego hargreeves #vanya hargreeves #luther hargreeves #pogo #grace

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skyblue-369 · 5 years ago

Text

When it rains, flowers bloom

A little disclaimer before starting: I know what you're thinking. I know it doesn't look so good. I'm not an artist (or a writer lmao), I just wanted to give a general idea of how I designed the character. Remember! Criticism is acceptable, just be polite.

(I'd like to put a "read more" link on the tunblr app but I can't. If anyone reading this knows how, I'll appreciate your help.)

Plus, bonus gif at the end of the post ⬇️

Word count: 1341

"Be one of you? A member of your superhero team or something?" asked the blonde girl, finally sitting on a cut tree trunk, because at the moment all of her energy had to be switched from her limbs to her thoughts. In her mindset it was already confusing that someone had broken her daily routine. Surely accidents happened before, like the time some ravens started chasing her because her hair looked like a nest, or the time she believed covering in mud was the perfect idea to become invisible at night and almost got caught. As i said, accidents happened, but never on this level.

Moreover, those six kids were offering her to change life nonchalantly, and she didn't know if she had the strenght to do it, not again. Although living for three years in a cave all by yourself can make you crave some company, Maria wasn't sure if becoming a superhero was the right path to take. It sounded weird in her head.

<p/>"I'd prefer to use the term family."

Luckily, Ben giggled at the comment and added a clarification that would make her change point of view. "Family" was the magic word because, at the end, wasn't it everything she ever wanted?

"Wait, so they are brothers? How? Oh wait, adoption...An orphan that doesn't know siblings don't always look the same. How ironic."

Just the idea of a family, of a mum, a dad, and brothers and sisters that couldn't be afraid or jealous of her was more than tempting.

She could tolerate to use her powers more often if it meant that her reward was love.

However, the sparkle in her eyes was blown away very soon. It seemed clear that the Hargreeves had different opinions on the matter.

For example Diego, who was standing far from her until now, snapped and pointed his finger so sharply against the girl that he could almost stab her. Maybe because he was literally holding a knife in said hand.

"Wait! Wait! Wait! Not everybody agreed on this! We're already full of problems, don't you think? We don't need to add another weird kid to the list."

"He's saying that as if he wasn't one." Maria mumbled glancing at the only other girl in the room. She would rather speak Italian in order not to be understood, but there she believed she was in good faith because she wasn't mocking, just explaining her misunderstanding to Allison.

"Stop behaving like a jerk, Diego." Three caught the signal and replied, while getting off the table to protect the blondie, almost covering her view. Obviously One had to join the discussion. In fact, as Number Seven will explain to her the next day in the comfy living room of the mansion, Two's rage acts like a tornado. It is sudden and aggressive and destroys everything around it, especially Luther's patience. Moreover, It looked like One shared the same brain as his sister because they tend to agree on anything, but this time Luther's way of laying out words only made her facepalm.

"I don't know you, but for all of my childhood I had been wondering if other people with our kind of abilities even existed. Now that we found one, the least we can do is report her to Father."

"Are you listening to yourself, Luther? What childhood? If Father lays his hands on her, he'll make her suffer as he did with us, treating her like some sort of machine. We're doing her a favour."

The air was becoming thicker, both metaphorically and literally. The cave already had a little airflow owing to the fact that the entrance had to be hidden by two doors, which were a layer of plants and a sheet of iron.

Maria felt her breath even heavier. It was the first conversation when she wasn't just staring from afar since a long time. She wasn't used to talking, let alone arguing. She wanted to light the mood but didn't know how, and tried to find advice in Ben's eyes, still in contact with hers.

"Don't want to interrupt you guys or something, but shouldn't we be asking her? Anyway honey, how can you not get your boobs stuck into this thing? Tell me your secret!"

Who could tell that the miracle could reside in the only person who didn't speak a single syllable in the whole fight, if we count that Five was muttering to himself!

That kind soul of Klaus was laying on his stomach on the girl's floating bed, that wasn't so practical to sleep in. What would you expect from a net, "purchased" by some gentle fishermen, attached to the roof of the cave and decorated with some pillows?

In fact, the boy was having fun tracing the outline of its holes, while gazing at Maria through one of them.

The poor girl was trying to cover her almost flat chest with her arms, her blush fading into the orange light of the candles. Everybody seemed to empathize with her embarassment and fell into silence for a second.

"Not that she can really choose, Klaus. Tell me, how long did you think you could live like this?" Five was too serious to get distracted from his brother's nonsense and actually heard his only logical sentence.

"Scostumato (Rude)! You have no idea how many things I had to steal just to give some colour to this room!" finally Maria managed to talk back and wanted to approach that old-young man. On the other side, Five's eyes were moving around so fast to analyze every piece of furniture, but could never stop to look at the blondie.

That's the change of subject that the "rescue team" needed to shot the final question.

"So what do you say? Wanna come?" almost sang Ben to sound more convincing, causing Four to laugh a little.

Maria told them without any frills how amazing it would have been to join them.

"I'd like to, but I respect every opinion, even Diego's..." these were her words.

They didn't show the complete truth, she was just being polite.

"Don't listen to him, he's always so grumpy." Allison tried to calm her down, while glancing at Number Two, who was already stepping outside.

"I'm going. Reach me when you finish this puppet show." he growled, right before putting in act his dramatic exit.

He was just moving the door when his hand was caught by Maria's.

"Where do you think you're going? We're deep in the forest, you'd get lost for sure." she gave him a lovable smile, mixed of concern and satisfaction, which made Diego freeze subtly. He felt trapped by some memories.

This allowed the girl to pass him, make a little turn and march backwards to see if everything was at its place.

"You have to go to the main road, right? Let me guide you myself! And can the last one who comes out turn the candles off, please? We don't want to start a fire."

One at a time, they all passed around the little lake avoiding to step into the water.

The only exception was for Klaus, who didn't care about the waterfall when he ran to the others. Turning off the lights didn't take a lot, he was just stealing a jar full of suspicious herbs.

"So, what's the verdict, my partner in crime?" he asked, hugging Ben from behind.

"I'll take it as a yes..."

"Welcome to our dysfunctional family, honey!" he shouted, as on the other side of the line the blonde girl crawled a little on herself, putting her arms around her waist. A golden tear fell straight to the ground, giving birth to a daisy.

She was leaving that place as if she just slept there for a night. She's never had a connection with it, really. The only thing that attracted her was the beauty of nature, which could be found everywhere. And then, all the good memories she wanted to keep were already treasured in her blue t-shirt.

Preparing to get childhood traumas with the Hargreeves be like:

(Kiernan Shipka looks so cute in this I can't)

#umbrella academy oc #uaocsdaily #ocappreciation #tua ocs #tua #umbrella acedmy #the umbrella academy #drawing

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b-rainlet · 5 years ago

Note

i really loved reading what you wrote about allison and luther so how about alluther again for the new ship q&a? :D

This is years late but I just wanted to give y’all some sweet hcs while I am battling this monster of a Luego WiP!

Who accidentally pushes a door instead of pulling/vice versa

Okay have you seen Luther? Luther tries to dance and accidentally wrecks havoc across his room (which is very relatable) while Allison is a Queen who is able to flawlessly fight in heels.

Luther will try to be a gentleman and open the door for Allison in this one fancy restaurant he invited her to on their first serious Date - because she is a movie star, she’s probably used to expensive food and champagne and guys who can talk about politics instead of scared boys who still write poetry - but he’s so fucking nervous, he pulls the door when he should push.

And normally that would be a little hiccup for an otherwise perfect night but not with Luther. Luther accidentally pulls the door and tears it straight out of the frame.

“Uhhh…, sorry?”

(They don’t eat at the restaurant. He isn’t allowed to set foot there anymore. He also has to pay for a new door).

(Luther is terribly sorry he ruined the night but Allison is to busy doubling over laughing to say anything).

(They eat at home, pizza and leftover pasta from dinner. Allison drinks beer instead of champagne and laughs some more when Luther spills juice on his shirt).

(Allison also thanks him for such a nice Date before kissing him, hands on his face, so maybe it wasn’t ruined after all).

Who doodles little hearts all over the desk with their initials inside them

Both! Have you seen them as kids, making love eyes at each other over dinner? You can bet that both of them have a bunch of notebooks that are just full of ‘A+L’ or ‘A.H. + L.H. = Hearts’

Allison has an old doodle she made as a kid of them on their wedding day and she couldn’t bring herself to throw it away.

She shows it to Luther once, joking how hopelessly in love she was as a child, how childish!

And Luther looks at her for a long moment, all serious, before getting up and fishing something from under his bed.

A box.

A box full of poems.

More precisely, a box full of poems about Allison, some from back when they were 13 and some from only a month ago.

Luther refuses to read them out loud - face all pink and biting his lower lip - but Allison trades them for the picture she drew.

Once they live together, the picture somehow ends up on the fridge, along with some of Allison’s favourite poems.

They don’t talk about it but both smile every time they enter the kitchen.

Who starts the tickle fights

Luther!

Allison is a ticklish little thing and Luther has used that to his advantage since they were kids.

(All of them used that to their advantage, especially Klaus who liked to raid Allison’s room for nail polish and skirts).

And ever since she was kid, Allison had hated it.

Which is only normal, who enjoys having hands all over their body, tickling her sides?

So Luther doesn’t do it often.

But sometimes…..

Sometimes when Allison is in a bad mood, he knows he just needs to trail his finger over the underside of her foot and she’ll be a giggling mess.

“C’mon, cheer up a little? For me?” - “No.”

“Well, okay then.” *starts to wiggle his fingers under Allison’s shirt, scratching his nails over her stomach* Allison, immediately giggling: “Stop iiiiiit.”

“If you give me a smile.” Allison: *trying her best to smile while also trying to wiggle away from Luther’s gentle touches* “And a kiss.”

(Maybe, if Allison is honest with herself, she doesn’t hate being tickled as much when it’s Luther doing it, less because he likes how she squeals, but more because he’s earnestly trying to stop her from being moody).

(And maybe Luther touching her simply isn’t the same level of awful as anyone else touching her).

(Maybe she likes being tickled when it’s big hands doing the tickling, touching her as gently as possible despite their size).

Who starts the pillow fights

Allison!

They rarely have pillow fights because Luther is afraid he’ll get carried away

(And do you have any idea how awful that was as a child? He once hit Klaus with a pillow hard enough he got thrown against the opposite wall and had a concussion. Luther rarely participated in any ‘rowdy’ games after that).

But sometimes, Allison will throw a pillow at him when she wants him to pay attention to her or when she’s too lazy to move and tries to sweet talk him into getting something so she doesn’t have to stand up.

And Luther will throw the pillow back - gently - and they’ll just try to hit each other with pillows and blankets and shirts and whatever else that’s soft enough to be flung at each other.

They rarely do the typical ‘jumping around on the bed, hitting each other with pillows’ though, because Luther jumping on a bed? You want the bed to survive a few years, right?

He used to be more bummed about this kinda stuff as a kid anyway, no need to be sad about it as an adult. Allison still tries to get him to play wrestle with her a little, tries to pin him to the bed or just slumps down on top of him like they’re still 13. It’s cute.

(It also leads to kissing 90% of the time now, so Luther is good).

As teeny tiny children, Allison felt bad for Luther not being able to play with their brothers without accidentally breaking their bones, so they always played together. Baby Alluther playing house together, colouring pictures, telling each other fantasy stories and going on made up quests…...Luther would’ve followed Allison anywhere.

Who falls asleep last, watching the other with a small affectionate smile

Depends on who falls asleep first, lmao. In a world where Skype exists, they probably facetime each other whenever Allison can’t be home, murmuring things back and forth already half asleep. And sometimes, one of them will actually fall asleep, softly snore as the other either keeps talking to them (Luther) or softly sings for them (Allison).

They never end the calls, btw, they just watch the other sleep, peaceful expression on their face before slowly falling asleep themselves, dreaming about being able to reach out and touch.

Who mistakes salt for sugar

This is something that could happen to both of them. Like, maybe they’re at a diner and Luther accidentally salts his pancakes so Allison feeds him bits of hers, or Allison is cooking at the mansion and after all those years she isn’t sure about which shaker contains what anymore and just grabs the one she thinks has the sugar in it.

Although Allison would probably be thoughtful enough to check which is which first, whereas Luther lives a dangerous life.

Who lets the microwave play the loud beeping sound at 1am in the morning

Luther. He tries to prevent it but he’s sluggish and slow when he’s tired so he never manages to.

Allison rarely wakes up from it though, which Luther is very grateful for because he feels a little bit embarrassed about his nightly food cravings.

(He eats...weird stuff at night. A lot of it covered with melted cheese, whether cheese should be on that dish or not. Allison stops commenting on it once she figures out how guilty Luther feels for it).

She does try to get him to talk about things instead of stuffing his feelings with food but it’s a long journey.

Who comes up with cheesy pick up lines

Allison!

Allison likes to make Luther blush by stepping next to him and saying things like “What’s a pretty thing like you doing here all alone?” even though they’re only standing in the living room.

Luther tries to retaliate by coming up with his own pick up lines but he spectacularly fails each time.

“Are you from Tennessee? Because I got lost in your eyes.”

Allison thinks it’s cute though, so that’s alright.

(Diego’s the one who tells him all the pick up lines and face palms when he gets them wrong. And then mentally yells when Allison still kisses Luther and proclaims herself ‘swooned’ because HOW?

Who rearranges the bookshelf in alphabetical order

Luther.

Allison doesn’t mind but Luther gets really peculiar about where certain books should be.

He has different shelves for crime novels, for romance stuff and for books that have multiple installments (“Because they belong together, Allison!”).

He also gets upset when Allison sets down a book upside down because that’s not good for the back of the book and in Luther’s words “It hurts the books.”

Also, Luther is the kinda person who tries his hardest not to dog-ear paperbacks, not holding them open too wildly so there aren’t any crinkles on the back.

He got Allison rainbow coloured bookmarks for Christmas because Allison is the kinda person to just use whatever as a bookmark - even another book.

(Allison also writes into books, highlights her favourite paragraphs or just scribbles down her thoughts on something next to the dialogue. Luther kinda hates it but sometimes he’ll turn a page and just see Allison’s elegant handwriting, spelling out “I love you!” or “Hey Handsome ;)” and he can’t help but smile.

(Sometimes he goes to Allison and tries his best to burrow into her lap without crushing her when he finds a note like that. Allison kisses his forehead and makes space for him on the couch).

Who licks the spoon when they’re baking brownies

Luther!

Luther is a little boy who just so happens to be 6’5 (Fun Fact! I did not make that up, Tom Hopper actually is that tall).

So he’ll help Allison and Grace bake and hope he gets the empty bowl with the leftover cookie batter.

He has to fight Diego over it though. And most of the time Five gets it anyway, simply because they can dial up the puppy eyes whenever they want to).

Who buys candles for dinners even though there’s no special occasion

Luther!

He is a big sappy romantic who buys flowers for his beloved whenever he walks past a flower shop or he sees some pretty ones outside and he absolutely won’t have dinner without lighting candles. Especially when he’s the one doing the cooking (which he does a lot simply because Allison is a very busy woman and Luther likes providing for her).

He also prepares bubbles baths for Allison with loads of candles and scented bath bombs and stuff and they don’t fit into the bathtub together, but Allison talks him into at least dipping his feet in too.

And more often than not, Luther will rub over Allison’s back and wash her hair while Allison idly plays with her hands or tries to get her hands on Luther’s arms or his face.

(Allison is grabby and Luther enjoys that but not when he’s trying to wash her hair).

Who draws little tattoos on the other with a pen

Allison!

Allison isn’t a big artist but she likes doodling, especially when she’s stressed. And Luther never complains when she draws a little heart on his arm or his cheek.

And it’s also a nice way of being intimate? Allison holding one of Luther’s hands with her own, his arm gently laying on her thighs as she leans over and draws on it, her hair tickling him when she moves.

Luther actually considers getting some of her drawings done as tattoos but Allison always shakes her head, claims they’re silly little things.

Luther loves them either way.

(Sometimes Allison writes her name on Luther’s wrists and Luther’s name on hers. Pretends they’re in one of her romance novels, the ones she read as a pre-teen, daydreaming about Luther being her soulmate. Still does apparently.

Luther kisses his arm when she does it, kisses her name on it and then his name on hers).

Who comes home with a new souvenir magnet every time they go on vacation

Allison!

She’s the one who comes around loads, be it because she’s going on vacation with Claire or because she’s on a promo tour for her upcoming movie.

Luther….feels better just staying home. Safer.

Allison doesn’t push him but she does remind him that he’s always welcome to join her. Luther nods everytime, puts the magnet on the - slowly overflowing - fridge, but never takes her up on the offer.

They have time.

Who convinces the other to fill out those couple surveys in the back of magazines

Luther!

Luther does every single survey he can. What kinda boyfriend is he? Does he fall for bad boys too easily? Is he trapped in a loveless relationship? What Hogwarts House does he have? What kinda Girl is he?

He does them all. And he always shares his results with Allison very excitedly.

Allison humours him by doing the surveys with him but she isn’t as obsessed.

(She also doesn’t believe in astrology and horoscopes, not the way Luther does, but she still checks his horoscope daily and send him those ‘The signs as…’ posts).

She thinks they’re doing quite well, no matter what the survey results are.

#Alluther #I love them

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