#bring dolores back

[thetimetravellercat]

crack thoughts on TUA4 if we kept the whole 'Five and Lila get lost in the subway' sideplot, bear with me:

it would have been so much funnier if, after a while, Five went looking for Dolores because "you know what, at least, the last time I ended up stuck and lost in time, I had Dolores, might as well get her back" and so he does

and Lila teases him endlessly about it, because of course she would, that's what Five and her do, they bicker and tease each other all the time

except, at one point, it's been what, five or six years, and Five is asleep, and Lila sees Dolores and she gets closer, and starts talking to her as Five does, and then she is about to kiss her when she snaps out of it like "fuck, I really need to get back to my family" and then she wakes up Five and they keep looking for the exit with Five going into one of his manic moods with diagrams and calculations and cie and eventually they find their way back

that would have been so much funnier

[theivesbustamate]

I miss her.

Template by: sockkur on capcut

[msfangirlgonewild]

I admired how (on season 3) a gentleman on a wheelchair is Lady Whistledown’s number one fan and a debutante who uses British Sign Language to her deaf mom - are the both regular members of the Ton. Well done Shonda👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

Pleeeaaaase may we have Lord Remington at the LW reveal??? I am still hoping only a small amount of people plus the Queen will find out.... but just let me have him involved.

[gxldencity]

I'm Also repurposing a bunch of abandoned OCs into dolores's background for dragon age. Those who were around remember my antivan trevelyan OC and well........the Lorenzo Salvatore that I mention in Dolores's cliffnotes is the same Lorenzo Trevelyan as my antivan trevelyan's brother :)

[acid-ixx]

I hope you don’t mind but I need to ramble this to someone, neglected Wayne reader right? The fam would forget to bring them to social events and whatnot right? So there would be very few pictures, articles and interviews or even facts about them, meaning that reader Wayne is a rarity. Still following me? Reader Wayne with a small but devout fanbase.

I’m talking they are trading the latest pictures and sharing links to the rare interview with reader in it, following any social media they have that isn’t private, they are just fascinated by this micro celebrity that seems to always be forgotten. Okay but also imagine one of the heroes developing a para-social attachment to reader. My money is on Conner Kent, mainly bc he can project his own issues with his dads onto reader and he can Dolores ~Encanto~ reader with his super hearing and develop a even bigger parasocial obsession with them

I hope you enjoyed this ramble, I will leave you be now, see ya later alligator! 🐊

omg another one of my asks that actually predicted a major plot point... this ask ties well with the last part written here. i'm thinking about having the reader get a love interest/s but i have already written an outline but one thing is for sure—

you have more than just your family interested in taking you.

major spoilers below the cut. — an excerpt from chapter xx

(name) wayne may have been a name forcefully deleted off of the face of the internet, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have its conspiracies of its own. nobody knows who you are beyond the blurry, unsolicited pictures of you. it may have been a photograph of your back, or articles published in unknown websites and buried at the far end about a kid entering through the fancy gates of the wayne manor.

you are a product of a one-night-stand.

but they don't know who the mother is, don't know your age, or where you come from, and what business bruce has with the woman to guarantee your adoption at the instance she had disappeared without warning.

your existence was a mystery most would like to solve. after all, it was your picture that was plastered all over the newspapers and articles, it was your name that journalists whisper and it was a silhouette of your face that the underground knows by heart. every known information about you was shared discretely yet efficiently like some sort of virus.

you were a target for interest, a large sum of money if they will. and alfred had taken it in his hands to make sure there would never be a repeat of what had happened before.

it was a clumsy mistake, one that cost you your memories, and one he swears on his life he'll never make again.

the first course of action he needs to arrange, which may seem difficult for most; he needs to confront bruce.

after all, your freedom is your doom.

maybe this is out of the picture, but id' like to imagine you and connor having a therapy session where one comes out absolutely obsessed with the other, and it's not you.

connor's character for me is so, so good for an angst potential. it's like his personal struggles is a way for him to show you how absolutely you two are meant to be. and he may have met you through bumping into you (false) or maybe... he has seen you stalking through the shadows back when he visits the manor. using his superhearing, he can hear your voice from the kitchen begging alfred to relay a message to bruce, sounding so absolutely desperate. it's the way you tell alfred how you wished your father actually spends time with you, or how nobody seems to notice you— that he kind of just makes a silent promise that he will talk to you soon, he needs to know why this family seems so keen on ignoring and how hypocritical tim is for literally doing the same thing to you when he's aware of kon's past.

if he (or anyone else) should be a love interest (though he is a minor character in the series unless you guys want him to be a major one), i can already imagine the absolute hell you have to suffer not only from your family but from your own lover. just imagine the stockholm syndrome or the delusions you convince yourself with because you're finally loved by someone but that love restricts you from the very freedom you tried to build.

the batfamily would be so conflicted because why are you choosing some stranger over them...? then you slap them in the face with, "well, this "stranger" wants to kidnap me and lock me up, sure! but at least they actually looked at me for more than five seconds!" and you can watch how the color drains off their face, their conflict giving you the perfect opportunity to run away from both your ex-family and your soon-to-be-kidnapper-lover who thinks your comeback is a funny way for you to propose.

[wisteria-lodge]

JK Rowling & the Color Pink

So I'm working on a thing about queer coding in the Harry Potter books... and first I needed to do a sidebar on how the color pink is used. I’ve made a list of every time a character either wears pink, or is heavily associated with a pink object. We actually get some pretty clear categories that are unintentionally very revealing, and say a lot about how JKR sees "girly" femininity.

Let’s start off with the obvious: 

PINK = VILLAIN (FEMME) 

Petunia Dursley: “salmon-pink cocktail dress," "neat salmon-colored coat." Also paints her walls "a sickly peach color."

Gilderoy Lockhart: “lurid pink robes to match the decorations” 

Pansy Parkinson: “very frilly robes of pale pink” 

Rita Skeeter: “long nails were painted shocking pink” 

Aunt Muriel: “feathery pink hat gave her the look of a bad-tempered flamingo.” 

(Aunt Muriel only shows up briefly at Bill and Fleur’s wedding, but then proceeds to insult pretty much every other character, and give Harry an existential crisis by spilling the tea on Dumbledore)

Dolores Umbridge: “a horrible pink Alice band that matched the fluffy pink cardigan.” 

(Also: has pink stationary, and her pamphlet MUDBLOODS and the Dangers They Pose to a Peaceful Pure-Blood Society has a pink cover) 

Cho Chang

(Okay. Not a villain per se, BUT. Cho is the reason the mole gets into the DA in the books (and just is the mole in the films.) And given that she is a sort of Umbridge-aligned sub villain in book 5, at least structurally... it IS interesting that the place she brings Harry for a date has this very pink, Umbridge-coded description. 

It was a cramped, steamy little place where everything seemed to have been decorated with frills or bows. Harry was reminded unpleasantly of Umbridge’s office. “Cute, isn’t it?” said Cho happily. “Er . . . yeah,” said Harry untruthfully. “Look, she’s decorated it for Valentine’s Day!” said Cho, indicating a number of golden cherubs that were hovering over each of the small, circular tables, occasionally throwing pink confetti over the occupants.

Fleur Delacour: “[her wand] emitted a number of pink and gold sparks.” 

(Also not quite a villain, and I adore Fleur BUT… she’s written hyper-femme in an intimidating, borderline threatening way. She’s very opinionated, bordering on rude. She’s “full of herself” as Ginny puts it. And when she gets engaged to Bill and becomes an unambiguously good guy, she has this interesting moment of ~Pink Rejection~)

“. . . Bill and I ’ave almost decided on only two bridesmaids, Ginny and Gabrielle will look very sweet togezzer. I am theenking of dressing zem in pale gold — pink would of course be ’orrible with Ginny’s ’air —”

Hermione Granger: “Wearing a pink bathrobe and a frown”

(Hermione wears pink exactly one time, and it is at her most villainous… during Book 1, when she tries to stop Harry and Ron leaving in the middle of the night to go duel Malfoy.)

A voice spoke from the chair nearest them, “I can’t believe you’re going to do this, Harry.” A lamp flickered on. It was Hermione Granger, wearing a pink bathrobe and a frown. “You!” said Ron furiously. “Go back to bed!” “I almost told your brother,” Hermione snapped, “Percy — he’s a prefect, he’d put a stop to this.” Harry couldn’t believe anyone could be so interfering.

(She literally does the sitting-in-the-dark, villain-lamp thing. Also, in case you were wondering, yes Hermione DOES get a moment of ~Pink Rejection~)

Near the window was an array of violently pink products around which a cluster of excited girls was giggling enthusiastically. Hermione and Ginny both hung back, looking wary.

Which brings us too: 

PINK = SILLY/FRIVOLOUS (FEMME) 

Sybill Trelawney: “after you’ve broken your first cup, would you be so kind as to select one of the blue-patterned ones? I’m rather attached to the pink.”

(She’s a fraud. Also hides empty bottles of sherry in the room of requirement. (I’m going to have to be uncharitable in this section, so am sorry.) 

Parvati Patil: “robes of shocking pink"

(Often described as “giggling,” thinks Professor Trelawney is amazing, the real deal.)

The Fat Lady: “a very fat woman in a pink silk dress.” 

(Often described as giggling. Drinks too much during the holidays. JRK is unfortunately well known for being fatphobic. Also the Fat Lady has a friend named Violet, and Parvati has a friend named Lavender. Not really going anywhere with that, just funny that they’re both shades of purple.)

Hepzibah Smith: “an immensely fat old lady wearing an elaborate ginger wig and a brilliant pink set of robes.” 

(So… almost identical description to the Fat Lady. And I think we should maybe talk about her more, maybe? Because the way she’s framed… I think she might be Tom Riddle’s sugar mamma?)

“I brought you flowers,” he said quietly, producing a bunch of roses from nowhere. “You naughty boy, you shouldn’t have!” squealed old Hepzibah, though Harry noticed that she had an empty vase standing ready on the nearest little table. “You do spoil this old lady, Tom. . . .” 

(Or maybe we… shouldn’t talk about that. Either way, Tom Riddle does kill her, steal her stuff, and frame her house elf so thats… not great.)

PINK = EMBARRASSING 

“Everyone take a pair of earmuffs,” said Professor Sprout. There was a scramble as everyone tried to seize a pair that wasn’t pink and fluffy.

(Pink fluffy earmuffs are adorable.)

“Wash out your mouth,” said James coldly. “Scourgify!” Pink soap bubbles streamed from Snape’s mouth at once; the froth was covering his lips, making him gag.

(The next two example are 'pranks' as well, I think the pink-colored soap is there to add a kind of insult to injury.)

Shocking-pink Catherine wheels five feet in diameter were whizzing lethally through the air like so many flying saucers. 

(This is a bit from Fred and George’s farewell firework show, it's funny that they’re specifically pink fireworks that Umbridge can’t get rid of.)

“Headless Hats!” shouted George, as Fred waved a pointed hat decorated with a fluffy pink feather at the watching students. “Two Galleons each — watch Fred, now!” Fred swept the hat onto his head, beaming. For a second he merely looked rather stupid, then both hat and head vanished.

(also just, pumping up an embarrassing moment)

PINK = OUTSIDER, WEIRDO

Hagrid

Hagrid’s flowered pink umbrella, which contains his broken wand, is brought up a lot. In this case I think we’re meant to see it as a joke. Hagrid’s so big, and so masc, but the pink umbrella makes him non-threatening. However… the pink umbrella, it’s not a totally positive thing, is it? It doesn’t match, it isn’t *him.* Hagrid wouldn't have chosen to carry this around, totally on his own, if he'd had any other choice. It sets him apart, both visually and socially (because it's a constant reminder that he doesn't have a wand.)

Dobby

Dobby, once he is freed, gets pink-and-orange striped socks, and they’re meant to communicate that he’s… kind of a lot. “Yeh get weirdos in every breed,” as Hagrid puts it. JKR has a very strange, honestly antagonistic relationship with Dobby. He’s the victim of book 2, but structurally kind of the villain? He describes the house-elves situation as “enslavement,” but Hermione’s treated as overdramatic for calling house-elves slaves two books later. And then everything is ret-conned and Dobby is… just kind of weird for liking freedom (and socks) as much as he does.

Tonks

Book!Tonks defaults to “bubblegum-pink” hair. Her hair is described as pink a lot. (Movie!Tonks defaults to purple hair, because they were worried that pink would visually align her with Umbridge.) And this is the oddest one on the list to me, because Tonks is such a universally beloved, fan favorite character. But I really do think that *as written*... we’re supposed to put her in a category with Dobby. The two of them leave (unintentional) destruction in their wake. They’re loud, they’re a lot, they take up too much space. Harry thinks they’re both kind of annoying. (and yeah, Harry 100% thinks  Tonks is “a little annoying at times.”)

[missyeon]

the best couple to come of out this shit show, your honour 🙂‍↕️

Can’t believe that Queen Delores got cheated on THEIR LOVE WAS REAL

[revacholianpizzaagenda]

97 Poets of Revachol pics!

HERE THEY ARE, courtesy of the event's official photographer, Zuzana Šubrtová. The Elysium-based LARP took place in two runs in Terezín, Czech Republic, in the latter half of September. These are from the second run!

I can't possibly describe what it was like to inhabit the rundown tenement of La Cage with more than a hundred other players, bringing to life a whole slice of society: immigrants, barflies, petanque players, sewer people, Union gang members, Wild Pines mercs, disco people, sewer people, looters, street artists, an inevitable mass of fascists, anarchists, communards (or so I'm told), communards (proper), communards (it's complicated), councilmembers, hustlers, taxidermy enthusiasts, the also-inevitable mass of pale-fried strugglers, journalists, Moralintern creeps, RCM chucklefucks, and so on and so forth. The old military hospital burst to life with small human moments and grand revelations happening in every corner at all time, as the gears of history moved toward our inevitable trial run of Le Retour.

We really had it all. Politics, drugs, creeping mold, more drugs, unseen voices steering us toward our best and worst natures, a metaphysical rave, entroponetic anomalies, precognition (scripted), precognition (just kind of happened?? Several times over?), suzerainist coffin deliveries, sweatshop politics, old reckonings, radiant sacrifices (accidental-ish), three-way divorces (one-upping one HDB), strikes and strike-breakers, political dance-offs and political orgies, and did I mention the drugs, under the greatness of history and the pale.

Thanks to the organizers for the colossal effort they pulled off like it was nbd, and to all my fellow dwellers of La Cage.

A few favourites:

First off, this was basically the entirety of my game:

...with a central heartrending tension between that abandon, that 'something beautiful is going to happen', and my character's earthly loves, the family she loved so much. It was really really fascinating and emotionally moving to get to play out that central conundrum in full (and go die on the barricades for an independent Revachol following the push of History) (and also of Franconegro pulling my strings like a marionette in a chilling scene) (but mostly History)

Case in point: me in the back, the Unseen voice/spirit/skill "Doomsayer" to the left, dear husband Tai in the middle. Sorry Tai!

Moralintern mission

Sweatshop workers strike

Both sides of the barricades, right as the game ended (this is not a spoiler, it said up front on the website that that's where the story would end): independentists (feat. His Fuckery Franconegro with the black wings in the background, but also the Unseen of if it sucks hit da bricks, the street martyr and idk who else) and globalists (Dolores Dei, Doomsayer et al)

speaking of those two - here's them in full rave regalia. I love that two of the collective skills of this place are flat-out "Dolores Dei" and "Franconegro", it's so fitting. Can't have current society without them, so here they are, as a molecular part of it.

RCM peeps predictably being serious, professional individuals

Designer drug guy talking to Corrosion who's kind of the local version of Electrochemistry. I'm sure this was a completely hinged conversation that reached sensible conclusions

Wild Pines mercs +1

Disco downtime. The set design for The Bearded Vulture club and The Second Club was out of this world. I hope my own pics can convey some of it.

sweatshop power dynamics (there were accidents, Union leverage, strikes, corruption... you'd think there would be barely time for anything else to go on AND YET)

possibly my fave pic of the whole thing (go Doomsayer!!!). we had specific graffitable areas on the wall and made VERY good use of them. Well, everyone else. My character wasn't much of a graffiti artist, her greatest contribution was turning "Revachol for revacholians" into "Revachol for mold"...

LARP^2

fascist campaigning at the Democracy Picnic

Petanque club...

...actually playing petanque? I never saw them ingame, I was starting to wonder if it wasn't a front for something else

Pictured - no scheming, plotting or quadruple-crossing here as you can clearly see by "Kras Knezhinisky"'s super normal demeanour and unassuming name, which I can totally believe was on his legit birth certificate)

I mention Kras because here's the theatrical taxidermy show with him in the middle narrating the adventures of his antifascist ferret Kommissar Kunixet. Nice pic, I take the shot. Five seconds later, superstar Frittte clerk Jamie Delaney joins in, and what can I do, NOT have Jamie in a shot? Absolutely not, so I take the same exact shot with Jamie in it as well.

And by sheer twist of technology (and of course the pale, and of course vile censorship in defiance of the Romangorod convention)... Kras Knezhinsky of all people gets kommissar-no-kommissar'd. "Kras, the pale is erasing you from our memories, from images," I warn him, showing him the two pictures. One hour later, he gets taken behind the waste disposal facility and shot.

Hm.

(LARP's haunted. These things KEPT HAPPENING. In the first run, that version of my character went "YOU MURDERER" at the specific merc who'd turn out to be connected with her background, a couple of hours before getting that reveal in-game. What's Elysium without some good old-fashioned precognition after all!)

Poor Flowerseller (red dress here) was kind of my Empathy - many valiant attemps were made, however. Uphill struggle.

HARDCORE anodic club leader Konrad Nilsen doing something not so hardcore here, idk what was going on exactly but then again I never even noticed we had a morgue and I had a plot right next room, so what do I know. I know that the end is near. That much for sure. And that the resolution of history's contradictions goes through the pale. But corpses? Nah.

||||||| 😎

[nexus-my-beloved]

Umbrella Academy is actually so devastating because what do you MEAN all of them lost their lovers. What do you MEAN Klaus lost Dave not once but TWICE and he was never brought up again. What do you MEAN Diego lost not only Eudora Patch but also got distant with Lila towards the end. What do you MEAN both Bens meeting Jennifer destroyed them + Umbrella!Ben couldn't have that one girl from Klaus' cult and had to love her from the afterlife. What do you MEAN Luther finally got out of the pseudo-incest relationship he had with Allison and married Sloane only to lose her so soon and never see her again. What do you MEAN Allison lost her first husband AND Ray because Ray walked out. What do you MEAN Viktor got screwed over by Peabody, lost Sissy, and then fumbled EVERY GIRL IN TOWN and never found someone he really loved the way he did Sissy ever again. What do you MEAN Five had to bring Dolores back to where he found her and then when he thought he had real love with Lila he got told he was just survival and it didn't mean anything. What do you MEAN Lila had this relationship with Diego that was on and off but she still loved him and yet she was with Five at some point and also lost Stan's mom (I'm like 90% sure there was some lesbian relationship going on there what the fuck was that). WHAT DO YOU MEAN.

[inthebitterwatchesofthenight]

Five and Lila (nonromantic) subway headcanons

Like everyone I really hated the Five x Lila storyline and the butchered potential of their almost-sibling relationship development.

But one thing that really ticked me, and that I haven't really read about yet, is: that timeskip montage looks like 3 weeks, maybe 2 months at best, not SIX FUCKING YEARS. In six years, people visibly age, especially under duress, if, for example, the only thing they can eat is rats?? (I'm not even talking about how they managed to keep roughly the same clothes and haircuts for six years without any explanation, or how they miraculously cleaned up before going back to Diego and Lila's precisely at the right point in time...) In six years alone with another person, you would probably struggle keeping your sanity, and the end result for each of them would probably look something like early stages of Apocalypse S1 Five. In six years alone with another person, even with prior attraction (which would already be ooc for both of them but whatever let's just grant them that for the sake of the argument), you would end up HATING each other all the way through your codependent relationship. I could see them having sex after six months (still following those creepy-ass ooc assumptions), but I could certainly NOT see them kissing softly and romantically wine-dining after SIX YEARS (the time those goddamn showrunners told us it took for passion to die down in a perfect marriage?? How about helltrap subway then??)

So after that really long preamble, here are my headcanons for what that subway section should really have looked like:

No Five x Lila, obviously

They bicker all the time; this escalates into outright fights. At some point, Lila storms off somewhere and they lose each other for five months.

When they realise they're not going home anytime soon, Five finds a timeline with a Dolores (other than the original one) and steals her away, because he's going to need her to cope through this. (Of course, he needs to apologize to her for being gone this long.)

At first, Lila thinks that Five is nuts for talking to Dolores, but in a matter of days she understands the urge and Dolores becomes her best friend. Five and Lila fight over Dolores's approval all. the. time.

Lila collects little trinkets to bring home to Grace and the twins (like the plushies in New Grumpson). After two years the gift bag has got way too big and Five helps her sort out the ones she really wants to keep; she bawls her eyes out and they arrange the throwaway gifts neatly on a bench, just in case they can come back and get them.

They find some really weird and fun timelines. Don't care what, they just do. Lila almost gets killed trying to bring home a souvenir.

Five and Lila find Max's Delicatessen together. By the way, there's a few Lilas there, ones that also met Fives. Lila can vent about her relationship trouble Diego with another Lila who has also married a Diego. But the other Diego is dead, and Lila realizes just how much she wants to get home before that happens.

This is a bit irrelevant, but that Five deli paradox psychosis plothole is explained by a random artefact created by Commission Five (like in his room in S3 I think?).

Five and Lila wait a short while in the deli to make a plan about the apocalypse. Another Five arrives, finds out about the marigold, and says out loud that the solution would be to erase all Hargreeves siblings from existence. A few seconds of silence, and then all the other Fives slaughter him because what kind of Five would to this to their family???? This is also one of the purposes of the deli, by the way. To make sure no Five comes out of the subway with delirious, dangerous ideas about harming their siblings.

Five and Lila realise that if Viktor can take away the marigold from people like Harlan, then he can take it away from his siblings. And what about Viktor himself? Well, Lila can mimic his powers and they can take away each other's marigold at the same time, and lose their powers just as they're done. Darn, why didn't they think of this sooner?

Lila tries to relook Five. After four or five years, he gives in, sees the end result and immediately finds a timeline with a suit to steal so as to fix this freakish mistake. He wears a hat for a while to try and hide his undercut hair.

Lila sings a lot. Five lets her, and just mumbles about her lousy tastes in music to Dolores.

Lila adopts a monstrous pet (three-headed cat? Giant bee?) for a few stops, and it mysteriously disappears at some point. Major fight ensues. Maybe this is why she leaves for a while.

In another timeline, they briefly meet a version of Diego that's not dead yet. He tries to kill them, Lila tells him that he's a great dad, he's weirded out and runs away.

Five picks up littered newspaper to see if there's anything interesting. He becomes a crossword addict. He moves to a new special interest puzzle game every few months.

After a fight, Five's big making-up strategy is to sit down next to Lila and start talking shit about the Handler. It kinda works.

I'm gonna stop here, this is already way too long. Please share your own headcanons if you have any!

[thekimspoblog]

The meta narrative around this show is objectively more interesting than the in-story narrative. I also think that Kim is ill-defined in BCS, but this plasticity is also her strength.

The archetype of "the love interest" in the crime drama genre has been evolving at a mutagenic rate ever since "Dexter", and where Skyler was a flawed but clear character, Kim represents a more interesting identity crisis in terms of how female characters are represented in these kinds of stories: indulging in the toxic masculinity alongside the boys is decidedly the more fun option, but screenwriters are never sure where to go once this has happened. The moral of "be evil just like the men who came before you" feels like an incomplete thought from a feminist perspective.

The whole reason I started this blog, is because I'm sure this character will be explored in more detail in her own series sooner or later, but because the writers have no clear idea what to do with her, Kim's personality is determined democratically by the fandom. "A horse by committee" if you will. This recess between one Breaking Bad franchise and another, is vital in deciding Who She Is, and I think more women should speak out about who we think she SHOULD be, not just who she currently is. Because even if she is still an undercooked lump of clay, there's a truth to her. Her trauma, her hedonism, her wrath.

And I've said it before and I'll say it again: Howard died the same week Roe was overturned. And even if the writers didn't intend for there to be a connection, the connection exists like it or not.

I know I criticise bcs a lot and especially Jimmy and Kim here but I don't actually hate them or the show. I'm just very frustrated with it and with some of the its choices.

I've said it before that I find Jimmy a fascinating character, I just hate it when people refuse to give him the complexity he has.

Kim, I really want to like her but I feel like the show never gave me enough of her, for better or worse. And at the same time, they gave her too much, too many traits to make sense in one person. When I pick up these random pieces and try to form something in my head, I'm quite intrigued by what I get, I think she has a lot of potential.

But this lack of the show in giving me a more definite answer about her holds me back from enjoying her more. I'm never sure if I'm reading her right or if I'm making up a character in my head. And even when I am more sure, I wish I had been able to see more of that in the show.

[ollycohens]

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

[inkspiredwriting]

A Hargreeves Welcome

Five Hargreeves x Fem!reader

Warnings: none

Y/N stood outside the grand, imposing structure of the Umbrella Academy, her heart racing with a mix of excitement and nerves. She had heard so much about Five’s siblings, each one a unique force of nature, and now it was finally time to meet them. Five stood beside her, looking uncharacteristically anxious.

“Are you ready for this?” he asked, his voice tinged with uncertainty.

Y/N smiled, squeezing his hand. “As ready as I’ll ever be. Let’s go.”

They walked up to the front door, and Five pushed it open. The hallways of the Academy were just as she had imagined—grand, a bit dusty, and filled with an air of mystery. As they entered the living room, they were greeted by the sight of the Hargreeves siblings in various states of relaxation.

Klaus was sprawled on the couch, flipping through a fashion magazine, Diego was cleaning his knives at the dining table, Allison was reading a script, Luther was lifting weights, and Viktor was playing his violin softly in the corner.

“Hey, everyone,” Five announced, his voice a little louder than usual. “This is Y/N, my girlfriend.”

All eyes turned towards them, and Y/N felt the weight of their scrutiny. She put on her best smile and waved. “Hi, everyone. It’s great to finally meet you.”

Klaus was the first to react, springing up from the couch with a wide grin. “Five, you didn’t tell us you were bringing home such a hottie!” He enveloped Y/N in a dramatic hug, twirling her around.

“Klaus, put her down,” Five said, rolling his eyes but smiling nonetheless.

Klaus set Y/N down gently, giving her an exaggerated wink. “Welcome to the madhouse, darling. You must have the patience of a saint to deal with our dear brother here.”

Diego smirked from his spot at the table. “So, how many timelines did he mess up to win you over?”

Y/N laughed, feeling some of her nerves dissipate. “Just the one, I think. Or maybe two. It’s hard to keep track.”

Allison stood up, crossing the room to give Y/N a warm hug. “It’s so nice to meet you, Y/N. I’ve heard so much about you.”

Y/N hugged her back, grateful for the genuine warmth. “All good things, I hope.”

“All good things,” Allison confirmed with a smile.

Luther put down his weights and approached, towering over Y/N with his imposing frame. “I’m Luther. If Five gives you any trouble, let me know, and I’ll straighten him out.”

Y/N laughed, glancing at Five. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Viktor set his violin down and walked over, offering a shy smile. “Hi, Y/N. I’m Viktor. It’s really nice to meet you.”

“You too, Viktor,” Y/N replied, appreciating the sincerity in his eyes.

As they all settled into the living room, Klaus couldn’t resist continuing his teasing. “So, Y/N, did Five tell you about his first love?”

“Klaus...” Five warned, but there was no stopping him.

“You mean Dolores?” Y/N said with a grin. “Oh, he’s told me all about her. I’m just glad I don’t have to compete with a mannequin.”

The room erupted in laughter, and Five groaned, burying his face in his hands. “Why did I bring you here again?”

Y/N patted his back, laughing along with the rest of them. “Because you love me, and you wanted me to meet your family.”

Klaus draped an arm around Five’s shoulders, grinning mischievously. “Yeah, Five. It’s all out of love. Just like how we’re going to tell Y/N all the embarrassing stories about you.”

“Oh, please do,” Y/N said, her eyes sparkling with mischief. “I’m all ears.”

Five sighed, knowing he was in for a long night of merciless teasing. But as he looked around at his family and saw Y/N fitting in so effortlessly, he couldn’t help but smile. Despite the embarrassment and the chaos, this was exactly where he wanted to be.

As the evening wore on, stories were shared, laughter echoed through the halls, and Y/N felt more and more at home with each passing minute. The Hargreeves were a handful, but they were Five’s family. And now, they were hers too.

In the end, it was Klaus who raised a toast, his voice uncharacteristically serious for a moment. “To family, old and new. And to Y/N, for putting up with our dear Five. Welcome to the madness.”

“To the madness,” Y/N echoed, clinking her glass with the others. She looked at Five, her heart full. This was the beginning of a new chapter, and she couldn’t be happier.

[fivelila]

The other side of everything

I think all of you have read the repeated sentences about what's wrong with Fivelila. So I thought I'd write my thoughts on it and maybe some of my headcanon.

1) Age gap

Problem: Ritu is 15 years older than Aidan. Five and Lila have an age difference in both directions, mentally he is much older and physically she is older.

My take: About the age of the actors, I'll say this much - the opposite is so common and many people don't find it strange. For example, did you know that Julia Roberts was 23 when her film Pretty Woman came out and that Richard Gere is 19 years older than her? And I haven't noticed anyone being disgusted by how that's possible. I could find some more extreme differences, but I don't think I want to.

Aidan is 21 and yes, he did TUA when he was younger, but a lot of people still think he's a kid. But no, he's not. Deal with it.

My headcanon: Lila is older than she looks. And that's thanks to the Handler and the work she does for the Commissions. Does any of us know how long has she lived somewhere outside of time? Sounds like another possible parallel to me.

2) Lila was cheating on Diego

Problem: Lila was unfaithful to her husband.

My take: Lila made it clear that she wanted a break with Diego and wanted to reconsider their marriage. Yes, the circumstances ended up being pretty wild, but it was more than obvious that she wasn't happy in the marriage. Among other things, it was over six and a half years for her before anything happened with Five. There are countries where such a long separation between spouses could also help to bring about an immediate divorce if necessary.

I also think that the only thing that connected them the most was their children and not that they were compatible as partners. A completely natural thing that happens really often in real life when someone builds a relationship on desire, which they mistake with love.

3) Five is homewrecker

Problem: Five is the reasons why his brother's family fell apart.

My take: It's not true. Five was not the reason that Lila and Diego had problems in their marriage. Yes, she was still his brother's wife and that's a bit morally grey, but their situation was complicated enough (as I wrote in the previous point) and it's completely understandable. By the way, don't people like this family precisely because their morals are often a bit grey? I guess that's probably only true sometimes, huh?

4) Five cheated on Dolores

Problem: Five was unfaithful to Dolores

My take: Sorry, but this is the biggest piece of shit ever. If someone prefers a relationship that Five made up in his mind just to keep himself from going crazy and heal his trauma, then our fandom isn't the one that's wrong. By the way, if Dolores was real and played by Rachel Delduca, she's definitely older too! I couldn't find the exact age, but it's pretty obvious that she's older than Aidan.

5) Five killed Lila's parents

Problem: Five was the killer of Lila's family and Handler could have kidnapped her. Her family may be alive, but it won't change the past.

My take: Yes, this is about the only thing that could never work in another story. Lila gets her family back, but it doesn't change what happened to her. Still, I think even she knows very well what it's like to work for the Commission and what it was like when an order came down. Handler bears most of the blame, even though she wasn't the one who killed them.

My headcanon: I don't think Lila had clean hands either, though we never really saw that much in the story. Still, even she could have been the murderer of some random parents of some random kids because that was her job. For example, she killed several people on the Commission to get access to past records in the barn, so it would be a bit hypocritical for her to blame others for actions that she herself had done before.

If you have any other thing I should discuss, please post it in the comments, I'll do another post about it.

[catherine-sketches]

You know what they should have done?

Bring Dolores back, but now as an actual human.

She meets Five, who immediately clocks her as his wife, but now alive… but she isn’t Dolores. Not really. Not HIS Dolores.

But he keeps, even if unconsciously, projecting his Dolores over Human Dolores.

And now Five has to understand that the Dolores that he made (idealized really) in his head at the end of the world and the Dolores that is a living breathing human are as far away from each other as Earth is from Pluto.

They may be similar. Maybe mannequin Dolores had a fraction of Dolores soul that latched itself to the plastic of her favorite mannequin from her work place the day the first apocalypse happened (Klaus could reveal it saying something like “She has your wife’s vibes. Like, she is definitely more complex than Mannequin Dolly was, but they feel very similar in a spiritual sense if you catch my drift”)

She knows him instinctively. But they are virtual strangers.

Then all that shit happens but instead of Lila, it’s Dolores.

Now Five would have seven new years to get to know and fall in love with his wife all over again.

[willknightauthor]

What happens in the Dolorian church in Martinaise is a profound bit of worldbuilding. At first Elysium seems like a normal, secular world, and if anything it's surprising how absent religion is from it. Liberalism has become the religion. The only real reminder that Moralism was once a fully functioning world religion is the abandoned and broken church west of the lock.

But learning about the pale point, the history of the churches, it makes sense now. The pale is directly interacting with human thought and society because they are both manifestations of information in the universe, in an evolving dialectic. Dolores Dei pulled information from the future and literally expanded the world by inspiring others with her dream. She was, by the standards of our world, a prophet. The churches, built around nascent points of pale particles, are a social attempt to control the pale through the collective act of ritual dreaming. By dreaming the divine, humanity pushes back the death of the world, for a moment.

By the time the game takes place, that side of Moralism is long dead. The churches have been abandoned and their function forgotten. Moralism has degenerated into liberalism. The Revolution was a moment of mass dreaming, of the future manifesting itself. It was the best hope to push back the Pale, but the MoralIntern crushed it, and restored global stagnancy. Growing entropy is accelerating the consumption of the world by the Pale, and no-one knows what to do because there is no future, only past.

Harry though, depending on how you play him, has the potential to start the reversal of this process, if just in Martinaise. The man who has effectively dedicated himself to a kind of monastic worship of the Pale (unknowingly) is the first one to start the process. (Never give anyone too much credit, even Harry.) But if Harry helps the homeless ravers start a club in the Church, he is effectively helping to start a new ritual community with the same properties as the old Moralist Church, right under the pale point.

If you get Noid to warm up to you, you learn he's a kind of organic existential philosopher. He even discourses with Tiago. He and the others don't just party as a hedonistic act, they maintain partying as a kind of ritual act of life affirmation and contemplation, an attempt to transcend themselves and realize something new and powerful. In short, they are reaching into the future to create something new. It's ridiculous 90s Euro club music, but the way they do it it's as ritually powerful as any church service.

This ties into the more general theme of Disco Elysium, that the human power to dream of a new future and then collectively act to bring it about is a powerful act of creation that pushes back the boundaries of the universe, and is necessary for our species to even survive. To crush the revolution, to crush democracy, is to crush the future. Elysium has killed God, but they haven't gotten to the next stage of becoming gods.

Dolorian humanism ironically does not end up elevating human beings. Only the communards had a chance at elevating humanity to a level of creative consciousness that would allow them to tame the Pale the same way they used to with religion. And the revolutionaries, even though the Moralists never recognized them as such, were likely pulling from the future as much as Dolores Dei. Kras Mazov will never be recognized as an Innocent, but in terms of prophesying and inspiring people with a dream which could push back the Pale, he effectively was.

Now with the revolution at a low point, the world is in a kind of existentialist limbo, lacking the conviction of faith in either the divine or the future. The old is dead, but the new cannot be born. What happens in Martinaise is the beginning of the return of that faith.