#and op ur right about the camerawork because sometimes they Get it they do it well

[sweetpastillas]

to hijack a five-centric post & make it more relatively? generalish because i love fanon vs canon discourse (vv good points tho i agree)–

half of the problem is genuinely due to the gigantic breaks in between seasons? i wont argue about production management but can say that because it takes a while to get to where the characters are next, we remain stuck at where they currently are. fandom can only imagine where their arc goes, but ultimately we stick to how their personalities are defined at its current stage

and like, there's also a combination of slotting the characters into archetypes and tropes. everyone or most are guilty of it, especially with s1 (it was in the marketing). so fandom establishes perceptions of these characters, and keep them consistent throughout the show's run.

at initial watch, five is the stressed out wise one, and in hindsight everyone should have listened to him. we keep this in mind as we watch onwards to other seasons, and we always see him proven right about apocalypses nonetheless. but we forget or we dont realize it enough, that five is characterized as someone who was raised and Hired by the commission to look at the bigger picture, and when that's over with, he can focus on the interpersonal stuff; in comparison to his siblings, who in their pov never lived the older life he did and only Had the interpersonal stuff to consider.

again, we forget or dont realize it enough, so many end up perceiving it as: five has another apocalypse on his plate. of course the hargreeves are too dysfunctional to listen to him. i cant believe they didnt listen to him. i bet they never listen to him. rinse repeat

so, fandom perception. who didnt push takes post-s1 that were basically "luther's a moon obsessed uptight bastard, klaus is our lil sad gay junkie, allison is That bitch, etc."

but the show canon takes that and runs, pushing those images of them and stretching within boundaries. we went from family drama of s1 to family hijinks in s2; therefore we keep the pre established fanon perception in our minds

(for example, allow me to ramble – netflix marketing for tua once put out a post that basically said "this would be luther's playlist" and it was a bunch of songs with moon in the title. and its like, as an og luther defender, fuck off no hed have a bunch of 60s-80s songs with 90s guilty pleasure standalones. the moon was shit for him and as much as it was beautiful it was confusing and isolating and Thats why he was obsessed. shut up abt the moon i beg

and of couse the 'luther's stupid -> luther's a himbo -> luther's just plain dumb' pipeline :( )

but yes. show canon, and fanon perception of it. the further morphing into 'allison is a bitch, now', and, as said, 'five, the local cranky elderly'.

the third element to this are the comics, which might be where the weirder and colder takes of the characters come from. i only have a barebones memory of reading apocalypse suite (the first volume where s1 is based on) and already the differences are stark. its the royal tenenbaums with an edge – the hargreeves' genuinely dont see each other as siblings, so in that verse its written as ok enough for allison/luther and diego/vanya(as far as ik the comics version of viktor still isnt trans) to happen. adding to that, because they see each other as teammates more than sibs, the shit they say to each other and how they say it can sound more snappy and detached than half of diego's angry s1 dialogue 💀. reginald was hateful there, too, a stark contrast to how we see him executed with more depth and complexity in the show

so then, adding in ideas you can get from the comics, fandom further morphs the perception. then comes show canon last in the race to combine, and suddenly we scramble. its either 'hey, thats not how my idealized version of that character in fanfiction works in this adaptation' vs realizing that was never the case at all. five the grump no one listens to vs just five, struggling one more time, with his siblings beside him

oh no you guys. i’m going to spew things i’ve realized while rewatching umbrella academy. I’m realizing were all being too sucked into fanon things after being stuck without canon content for so long. We have convinced ourselves Five acts like a mean mean dude to everyone but rewatching, i’ve realized he’s only stressed and is saying things out of panicked anger, especially in s1 with the apocalypse dooming over them. he acts soft to his siblings multiple times, he’s really not as mean as we write him in fanfiction. he is a little crap though, that’s for sure, and i love him for that <3

also realizing that the siblings don’t hate five. they just literally don’t know him at all. he came back a completely different person after 17 years for the siblings, they don’t know five, he’s a stranger so of course they’re gonna be cold to him. it’s like, “i don’t know you well, but you’re always going to be my brother in the end”.

ALSO. for those who ship some of the siblings, uhm… i’ve seen a lot of you guys try to prove that they don’t see eachother as siblings and more like academy students, but they very much say in just about every episode that they see eachother as siblings. they don’t actually SAY that word by word but they say things like “she’s our sister”, or “our dad”. if they say OUR dad… bro. i’m not even going to continue, you can put it together yourself. But, i do realize why people ship the siblings. I am not defending incest shippers but with umbrella academy i can see why people have resorted to it. only 3 of the characters in the main sibling cast has romantic partners. people like shipping people, people love writing romantic relationships, but with only diego/lila, dave/klaus, and sissy/viktor, (i’m not going to count five/dolores for now) people are desperate with the need to ship the rest of the siblings with someone, and since there are only a few actual canon characters in the show that interact with our main 7, people start shipping them together… yikes. anywho, that’s all for that peice. i blame the show writers as well for shipping luther/allison, they did not have to do that, but i’m hoping it was only to convey the severity of what childhood trauma does to people.

ALSO THIS HERE SHOOK ME. I actually think Reginald cares for the siblings. i hate to say it, but it’s true. caring for them does not mean being good, though. he was a horrible father, and person, but he genuinely did care for the siblings, in a like, “being the best is the best thing for you, i will make you better, for your sake, even if you don’t know it now, you will see that i am right” kind of way.

also why has NOBODY MENTIONED THIS. in season 2 when diego first reunites with five in the asylum, while he’s walking into the visitors room, he’s staring at five with this heartfelt, soft look, and then says “five…” in the most soft spoken voice ever 😭 your honor i love them

ALSO UGHHH THIS. IM GOING TO FREAK OUT ABOUT CAMERAWORK AND METAPHORS HERE SO BARE WITH ME. we as a fandom complain about the lack of flashbacks five has due to his ptsd. we’ve seen his first flashback since getting back to his family in s1 during the van scene when he gets triggered by those kids playing and starts thinking about his own childhood, i’m guessing. i ate that scene up, and was sad to see that be one of the only deeply vulnerable scenes he has in the season, and during my first watch i thought they’d never bring it back up. but they do!! i may be stupid for not realizing but whatever. in season 2, when five is trying to explain at elliot’s with all his siblings around that another apocalypse is coming, everyone starts talking about each other. as someone who studies film and camerawork, i love this scene. we see the camera focus on five as it slowly zooms in. it doesn’t switch scenes at all as the siblings voices overlap and echo over eachother. this whole scene conveys him getting overwhelmed and he starts to zone out, starting to think of the nuclear war he saw his siblings in. the scenes of the war start quickly switching through, showing many different scenes of it before it switches back to five, who says “guys, you all die. i want to forget it but i can’t” which just UGH its so well done there. if you think about it, he was starting to slip into another flashback. he was triggered by talking about their deaths in the war but was handling it well until the siblings started fighting, where we see the overlapping voices happen. it portrays him losing control and being unable to pull it back together with too much going on for him to focus on grounding himself. we DO however, see that five was able to pull himself out before he fell too deep into the flashback. i love how they show this through them still having the scene showing the war, but then fives voice starts talking over the scene which is still focusing on the war as if he was pushing it back and forcing himself to come back to the present.

thank you for reading if you’ve made it this far, i will continue to freak out another time <3