#chimpanzees are so fun!!

[shoechoe]

I enjoy those posts that refer to instincts of the human mind as "monkey brain" "chimpanzee brain" "gorilla brain" "orangutan brain" (etc.) as though human brains are some blend of all of the other primates and our instincts are like specific primates "talking" to us. I mean that's really not how it works but it's fun to imagine it that way

[sbeana]

local superhero cannot understand that crush likes them back. more at ten

[steelycunt]

mutuals what was the name of ur favourite stuffed toy as a child + what sort of stuffed toy was it

[girlcockholmes]

to all my non musical girlies out there. you must know. if you ever get the chance to see spongebob the musical you literally need to start elbowing bitches out of the way run dont walk you have to see that thing. literally one of the most fun experiences ever

[dandyshucks]

me: okay just ONE quick cartoony silly facial expression drawing and nothing else, i need to sleep decently tonight for once and getting to sleep on time would help a lot with that

the drawingS (emphasis on the s):

(its been... just over an hour since i started)

[threadsun]

Gonna be real with you the gender studies degree made it MORE complicated for you probably. (This is not a bad thing)

I tend to go with vagina-haver or penis-haver myself tho if I'm angling for a specific genital setup ngl.

Yeahhhhhhhhh 😔 ngl so many of my professors in that degree were terfs who didn't know what intersex people were that I have like... an instinctive contrarian reaction to these things. And I've done so much research into sex and gender and sex assignment and the language used around them that my brain feels like a fried microwave when I try to come up with a simple answer for my silly fun blog that is meant to be stress free.

I absolutely prefer part-specific language like... in general. Just in general life, I think it's more important when talking about sex (the body configuration, not the act) to reference specific parts than to try to use gender language to describe it. Amab and afab come with all sorts of assumptions about the body that are often untrue for intersex people or trans people who have had surgery or disabled people whose disabilities altered their primary or secondary sex characteristics or hormones. And like, probably also a bunch of other people I'm forgetting too. Because people are complicated and the medical ideal of what a perisex cisgender man and woman look like don't account for a significant percent of the population.

But yeah, like ideally people would specify pronouns/gender/body parts if they care about any of those and want something specific. But then there's also the inherent idea that someone with a penis won't have breasts, for example, when plenty of bodies have both. Or the assumption that someone who has a penis also has a pair of testicles, or someone with a vagina doesn't also have a penis or clitoromegaly, or that they haven't had medical intervention (consensual or nonconsensual) to change sex traits. It's messy!! It's all so messy and confusing and we don't have the right language for it to be concise and clear because our whole language was developed by a society that actively wants to pretend these variations don't exist and/or make sure they don't exist.

And this doesn't take into account the innate assumptions that have to be made to write a reader insert story with any level of detail. Assumptions about the number of limbs someone has, whether or not they have hair, whether or not they can walk and talk and hear and see. But if you completely scrub a reader insert story of anything that might make an assumption about the reader, then what are you left with? Nothing worth reading, that's for sure.

Idk idk sorry I think I might just be going a lil insane tonight? That scrupulous OCD is hitting hard. But yeah, my brain feels like maybe its exploded a little or possibly been submerged under water.

[evilminji]

The more I learn about John Constantine? The more I am certain you COULD just... dump Danny on him.

Like... literally.

Full on, sack of unconscious potatoes, "here ya go, deal with it, here's an unconscious royal teenager!", Dumped in his arms/lap at some shitty hole in the wall bar, by Suspicious Supernatural Forces, DUMPED on him. Like? Yep. It's a Tuesday. Guess he's NOT getting to finish this beer.

And you know what?

Knowing the crowd Danny runs with? They'd at least... SORTA try and explain what's happening? Instead of play the fun ol "HOT POTATO! Think fast, Constantine! Figure it out!" And run shpeal that he normally deals with. Thoughtful, really.

Don't get him wrong. It's still BULLSHIT. But at least he has a vague idea of WHY he's holding an unconscious, heavily bleeding, half-divine-but-not-really half human, teenager.

Fuckers left a few sticky notes.

THANKS.

He just LOVES patching up actively radioactive wounds while trying to translate... what is this? Mesopotamian? Who writes out their emojis in Mesopotamian?! "Smiling face emotional picture" my ASS. Still...

Kid in way over their head, hunted by damn never everyone for trying to do the right thing, AND grappling with their recent lose of a decent chunk of their own humanity? Oh and now he's KING of a whole spankin new Realm!

Fuck "Realms". Nothing ever good comes out of "Realms".

And APPARENTLY? His VIP returning customers spot under the Bus has been reserved! Because he's the kid's "Gaurdian". Why? So the nice Goverment stooges in suits will come knocking on HIS door first, of course.

......he'd be more pissed about that one if he wasn't REAL interested in what those bastards had to say for themselves. Meddling with forces they shouldn't be touching. Provoking God only knows what. He fucking KNEW those storms weren't natural.

Just? John getting handed a Suspect Youth. Press X for doubt and Sus. Okay... then give him back. No! Fuck you, says local Laughing Magician, I don't trust you EITHER.

Danny wakes up to the... VERY? Ngl? Intense(tm) stare down of... holy shit, are you an Actual Angel? (Yes. He is. Better hope you're not secretly evil or he's gonna bring The Smiting) Then the world's ACTUAL greatest Detective, who is a chimpanzee, offers him expertly made tea and the cheap take-out John brought with him.

He is in Space.

It's still not the weirdest morning he's ever had. But it's getting there.

@the-witchhunter @hdgnj @hypewinter @nerdpoe @lolottes @babbling-babull

[merthosus]

Blank minds

@selfishlittlebeing asked:

Hi! So basically I just read every single one shot on this blog. And I am obsessed with your work. And I gotta admit that, “Wounded nights” did things to me.🧍🏼‍♀️

I’m not sure if I am requesting or smth (if you’d like to write this I wouldn’t protest, but feel free to just ponder on this with me). But like… I can’t get the image of touch starved Five out of my head. Bcs…damn. Him holding the reader in his arms like that (WN)… but can you imagine HIM having a vulnerable moment because of all that stuff with the Commission and apocalypses, just the trauma package yk. And after all those years…just Five being vulnerable with someone and touch starved.🥲 I am making myself feel depressed with all this. Wanna be depressed with me?🎀

Summary: After Luthers wedding, most of the siblings already gone to bed. You didn't feel like drinking, but loved to watch the others drown their sorrows into liquor and just have fun. Just as you were about to fall into a deep sleep, a knock on your door pulls you out of your slumber.

Thank you for your lovely request! Also, here a sexy poster from Five I fell in love with! With every purchase you automatically support me :) https://amzn.to/3yGK6Fm

“Since everything will be dust soon anyway, you won't mind if I just lie down here for a while, will you?”

You're up to your nose under your eiderdown, with only the sound of collapsing buildings coming through your window. It may sound crazy to others, but for you, it's been part of everyday life for a week. Counting every second, spending the last time with your family and savoring it. There is nothing more precious than time. Money has no value anymore, but the ticking hands of the grandfather clock do have.

Your thoughts hover over your head like gray clouds. Since the first day you slept in that hotel bed, falling asleep felt like hell. You tried a lot to finally fall asleep normally again. But every time you closed your eyes, you were met with nightmares, worse than you could ever have imagined. You were sure that this couldn't be the end, it simply couldn't be.

Like every night, you try to push the thoughts aside, to repress them as if they had never been there. But a loud and uneven knocking jolts you out of your sleep like a thunderstorm. You startle awake and clutch at the sheets of your bed. “Yes!” you shout, but it sounded more like a question than an encouragement. You watch every movement, sharper than Diego's blades. As Five stumbles in, you let out a breath you didn't even released you were holding. 

“You scared me,” you mumble. "I scared you, so please, why should anyone be scared of me?" he says to himself. Any blind person would have recognized that Five had probably had a little too much to drink at Luther's wedding. Five doesn't finish the sentence and drops his head down as he continues to mumble to himself. After he fell back against the door, you gave him a worried look. “Thanks for closing the door, but I think you have a concussion now,” I smirk to myself. Five starts to giggle. “The world is coming to an end,” he says, and pushes away from the door again.

You look out of the window that separated you from the crumbling outside world. Instead of bright sunshine, dark red fire dazzles your eyes, bricks fly off buildings and trees uproot themselves. “No, really?” you ask him sarcastically as you turn back to him. You suppress your horror as he suddenly stands right in front of you. He holds on to the edge of your bed. You think about how he managed to approach you so quietly, the alcohol in his blood must be enough to put a chimpanzee down.

“Since everything will be dust soon anyway, you won't mind if I just lie down here for a while, will you?” he asks as he tries to climb onto the bed. “Five, eh?” you ask as you hold him down so he doesn't slide off. He awkwardly pushes himself over your legs, which elicits a small squeak from your mouth. “You're really rough, Five,” you complain, but you just couldn't help the smile on your face.

You had never seen Five so shameless. Five, who is usually so strong and independent, asks you if he can lie down with you for a moment. As you think about it for a moment, you briefly doubt your sanity. Was this a fever dream? But Five's careless hand movement presses your torso so hard into the mattress beneath you that you're sure it would have shaken you awake. “I've never seen you so awkward,” you squeeze your words out of the pain. “I'm sorry, but your bed is sooo soft,” he lulls to himself. You shake your head and stifle the comment that the beds here were all the same.

“Five, why are you really here?” you ask him. He lies down on his stomach and presses his head into your pillow. He mumbles his words into the fabric so that you can only guess what he's saying. “I don't understand a word, you stupid…” you grumble to yourself as you grab a tuft of his hair and push his head to the side. 

Five groans softly as you move his head, his eyes half-lidded and unfocused. You wait for him to speak, but it seems like he’s struggling to find the right words. He’s always been the one with the sharp tongue, the quick wit, and seeing him like this—vulnerable and slightly lost—pulls at something deep inside you.

“I didn’t want to be alone,” he finally mutters, his voice slurred but honest. “I’ve been alone for so long... and I guess I’m tired of it.” His words are a confession, raw and unguarded, much like the state he's in now. You’ve seen Five in many situations—fighting, strategizing, leading—but this is different. This is Five without his armor, without the walls he usually keeps so firmly in place.

You feel a pang in your chest, a mix of sadness and empathy. You’ve always known there was more to him than the ruthless time-traveling assassin he often portrayed himself to be. But hearing him admit his loneliness is something else entirely. "I understand you, Five," you say. He smiles and sightly closes his eyes. "I didn't want to be alone too, so I am happy that you are here now, I would've preferred sober Five, but this is also ok", you smile at him. 

You let your body fall back into your pillows, Five, who was still lying on his stomach, watching you. You put your head to one side and just look at him motionlessly. “Promise you won't tell anyone about the following?” he asks you. You don't understand exactly what he means. “I hardly think I have enough time left to tell anyone anything,” you say, with an unintentional sweep of sadness. “Promise” he whispers to you, while looking at you with begging eyes. Not only the pungent smell of alcohol, but also his seriousness to fly in your face. “I won't tell anyone,” you promise. Without warning, Five starts to move again. He pushed your arm up and curled up on your chest, like a cat looking for warmth.

Seeing five like this was new and made you very afraid to admit it to yourself. He cared so much about maintaining his strong, unbreakable personality that his current behavior frightened you. Despite the unfamiliar feeling of five so close to you, you almost automatically put your arms around his slender torso. His fingers slide onto the sides of your torso, clutching on it as if it was a matter of life or death.

"Five, what's wrong?", you ask him. "I am fucking scared", he lulls. His confession hangs in the air, heavy with the weight of his vulnerability. You can feel your heart rate quicken, the tension in the room shifting as you process his words. It’s a rare glimpse into the inner workings of Five’s mind, and the openness is both unsettling and intimate.

“Scared of what exactly?” you ask gently. “Everything,” he replies, his voice barely above a whisper. “The end of it all… the not knowing". The tremor in his voice sends a shiver down your spine, and you can't help but tighten your hold on him. You want to reassure him, to tell him that everything will be okay, but the truth is you’re scared too. The world outside is crumbling, and the future feels uncertain for both of you. 

He shifts slightly, looking up at you with his tired eyes. “I don’t want to let anyone down. Not you, not the others. I’ve messed up so many times already.” His voice is tinged with a mix of regret and fear, and you can see the conflict waging within him. “If we lose, at least we'll lose together,” you say. It didn't really sound encouraging, but you couldn't think of anything better. “Do you think you'll regret this tomorrow?” you whisper without looking at him. 

Five’s grip on your chest tightens just a little, and you can feel the slight shivering in his body as he processes your words. The silence that follows feels heavy, filled with the weight of the world outside and the vulnerability between you. “No,” he finally murmurs, his voice soft but resolute. “I won’t regret this. I might not remember every detail of tonight, but I’ll remember the way it felt to finally....", you wait for him to end his sentence. 

"feel you", he says, so quietly that you almost missed it.. There is a silence in the room, your body is no longer able to move. Your brain needs some time to process his words. “I went too far, I'm sorry I…” he tries to apologize. He pushes away from your body and leans on his arms. But before he can finish his sentence and move away from you completely, you put your hands around his face and crash your lips into his. 

The moment your lips meet Five’s, time seems to suspend itself. The world outside, with its crumbling chaos, fades into the background, leaving just the two of you in this small, intimate bubble. His initial shock quickly melts away, and he responds with a tentative but heartfelt kiss. His lips are soft and warm, and the urgency in his movements gradually transforms into something more tender and searching.

As you pull away slightly, you can see the surprise in his eyes, mingled with a hint of relief and something deeper that he might not fully understand himself. You’re both breathing heavily, the gravity of the moment settling in. “I didn’t want to...,” Five starts to say, but you place a finger gently over his lips, silencing him. “Don’t,” you whisper, your voice barely more than a breath.

“You don’t have to apologize. Not now. Not ever.” Five’s expression softens, and he looks at you with a mixture of awe and vulnerability. “I’ve been so caught up in trying to control everything, in fighting against the end, that I forgot about what really matters. I didn’t realize... I didn’t realize how much I needed this, how much I needed you.”

Feel free to tell me in the comments, what you think :)

[aekatty]

𝒵𝑜𝑜 𝒟𝒶𝓉𝑒! Ft. Monster trio + Law

a/n: i’m new to posting so no judging pwety pwease. also i wrote this super late at night 🙏

─── ⋆⋅ ♰ ⋅⋆ ───

18+!! MINORS DNI

masterlist

─── ⋆⋅ ♰ ⋅⋆ ───

cw: mentions of short reader, all of the guys except law-ish sound like they’re on crack, lots of wrestling, cheesy asf, is this what u do at a zoo?!

tags ✮⋆˙

fluff but mostly humorous, literal chaos, a bit ooc(?), tried to make it gender inclusive, found this prompt through pinterest lol

zoro

when you brought up the idea of going to the zoo, warned him beforehand about the “look but don’t touch” rule

you didn’t want him to see the zoo as a training arena

first suggested that yall go to the beach instead but u declined it saying, “it was too cliche”

he would never admit it but he’s silently insecure whenever he sees you get along well with the animals (whenever he smiles at them, they run away)

a small smile creeps up at the corner of his lips as he watches you gawk at the aquatic animals section

you call the seals, “sea puppies.” he just calls them “water dogs”

purposefully makes eye contact with gorillas to rile them up (he tried to ask the zookeeper to let him inside the enclosure so he can fight them to which you slap him in the back of the head for)

gorillas see eye contact as a challenge to fight

there was an event that happened where the penguins would dive and twirl underwater to impress you

zoro threatened them by claiming that he’ll ask sanji to turn them into “penguin kabobs” if they didn’t stop flirting with his gf (they got scared and ran back to their zookeeper)

attempted to smile at the otters but got scared and swam away

got lost one time and accidentally landed in the chimpanzee enclosure. you couldn’t help but laugh as the keeper got mad at him for beating up the chimpanzees bc they “gave him the stink eye”

the crew made fun of him after coming back from the zoo with a bald patch at the back of his head.

a giraffe thought his hair was grass and you had to pull him away just so he wouldn’t be tempted to use his swords on them

got both of you guys got kicked out after he tried impressing you by using three sword style on a polar bear

luffy

like zoro, u also warned him about the “look don’t touch” rule

like a kid on sugar, luffy got excited as he became enamored with the (in his own words), “big buff animals”

kept asking you which of these animals would make a delicious meal

would point at the monkeys and go, “look, it’s me!”

for the love of god, the rubber boy would not stop cracking up at the baboons and calling them “apple butts”

randomly asked you if you would find him more attractive if he was an actual monkey

he genuinely believed you when you joked about rhinos being “dinosaurs”

“NO WAY!! I THOUGHT THEY WERE EXTINCT!”

“i was jok-“

“WAIT TILL I TELL ROBIN ABOUT THIS! SHE'S GONNA BE SO JEALOUS WHEN SHE FINDS OUT THAT I DISCOVERED DINOSAURS BEFORE HER!”

he kept stretching his face and making monkey noises at the monkeys

(they looked at him with disinterest)

he thought it would be a good idea to wrestle a bear. you got mad at him after he knocked it out with his “gum-gum pistol”

he cried at the sight of the otters because he said that it reminded him of alabasta and that alabasta reminds him of vivi

he asked the giraffes if they were related to kaku and then panicked bc he “thought he was racist” for asking that

“[name], does this mean I'm not woke :(“

you got mad at him after he decided it would be a good idea to put his head inside the mouth of a hippo. the zookeeper almost fainted as the hippo bit down on his head but you assured them that his devil fruit powers would prevent him from dying that easily

you honestly contemplated your relationship with your captain/boyfriend but his stupidity is what makes him charming (to you at least)

he kept asking the zookeepers if he can keep the boa constrictor as a pet

along with wanting a snake as a pet, he kept asking the lions if they could join his crew

got emotional at the sight of leopards bc they reminded him of pedro

like zoro, he got both of yall kicked out after he tried smuggling a lion out of the cage and named it “sun destroyer 4000”

you were more surprised at the fact that you guys didn’t get kicked out earlier

sanji

“[name], my dear, how would you feel if i took you out on a date to a place of your choice?”

“well there is one place i’ve been wanting to go to for awhile.”

maybe going to the zoo with sanji was a mistake, the flirty blonde boy would not stop comparing you to every “cute” animal he saw

for long hair: it didn’t help that he purposefully braided your hair and tied them up to look like bear ears which you look even cuter in his eyes (my headcanon is that sanji knows how to braid hair hehe)

he found it cute that you saw a bunch of reindeers and called them “a family of choppers”

if there was a big crowd of people surrounding an exhibit and you couldn’t see, he would use his height to his advantage by lifting you up to get a good view of the animals

after getting down you were wondering why his nose was bleeding until you realized he had a good view under your skirt

if you’re wearing pants, he just nose bled at the sight of your gyat

you joked with him saying that you would find it hot if he wrestled an ostrich. but sanji being sanji, took it literal and actually did it

the zookeeper yelled at him after the ostrich was left unconscious

flirtatiously asked if you would still find him attractive even if he was an animal

“no, sanji, that would be beastiality.”

felt his whole face heat up after you put on matching ear headbands with him

in response, he tried to buy out the whole gift shop

tried to convince you into buying “i’m his, im hers” shirts but you told him it was cringe which hurt his ego

for gn! readers, bro tried to buy those “im cool, im cooler shirts” cause he a lil cheesy

when you became enamored with the snake exhibit he tried to flex saying, “you wouldn’t have to worry about a snake swallowing you bc i would be there to protect you, my dear”

you compared him to a ram bc you saw him as courageous and determined for his crew

“[NAME] SWANNN, YOU CAN’T JUST SAY THAT OUT OF THE BLUE!” there goes your man…

almost nose bled AGAIN at the thought of you as a red panda while visiting the exhibit (you thought he was tweakin)

got jealous when you said tigers were just as cool as zoro

he compared zoro to a baboon bc he’s always scratching his ass and sniffing his hand after (wait why is this lowk a good headcanon 😝)

you found it adorable as you watched him feed the animals in the petting zoo as if he were their father

he freaked out as the goat stole the cigarette out of his mouth and ate it in front of him.

one of your fave moments of intimacy with sanji would be sharing cotton candy with him as you watched the penguins do tricks in the water

after getting back on the sunny, you decided to surprise him with a ram plushie you bought behind his back

he thanked you by peppering your face in kisses and showering you in praises

“oh my dear, [name]. you don’t need to spoil me like that! it should be the other way around!”

bonus!! trafalgar law

law asked his crew beforehand on “great date spots” to take you out on; to which penguin suggested yall go to the zoo

he never cared for the zoo but as long as you were happy he didn’t mind

got flustered after you mentioned that snow leopards reminded you of him

he bought you a snow leopard plush and you named it “traffy”

you asked him if you should buy souvenirs for the crew

you asked him if you could adopt a polar bear so that bepo would have a friend. he replied with, “no bc he’s already friends with me”

thought it would be funny to teleport you to the lion enclosure until his powers conveniently started tweaking and he couldn’t teleport you back out

you punched him in the head after you came back with scratches from wrestling them

he felt bad for the joke he did on u, so he teleported you to the capybara enclosure as an apology

compared you to a meerkat bc “you’re short but really fast on those legs.” you responded by threatening to give his sword away to zoro

made fun of you after you got startled by him in the insect section. he laughed as you slapped his hand after he pretended it was a tarantula

he likes to install fear into u by explaining different ways each animal can kill you

he would purposefullykiss you in front of the monkeys after they tried flirting with you

the zookeeper had to tell him to stop bc they were afraid that they would break out their enclosure

what pissed him off even more was the fact it reminded him of the rubber boy

after you guys get back to the submarine, the crew crowded you as you gave them their souvenirs. law couldn’t help but smile at your generosity and friendship with everyone

oh yea….he felt himself fall in-love with you again

[jet-teeth]

Finally got caught up on that funky Bravern show the other day and omg. It's so much fun. Have some scribblin' More yelling under the cut (and also mild spoiler alert if you haven't seen any of it:)

Loved seeing more of the other Deathdrives, even if they were kinda short-lived on-screen and all (guess that's what happens when a buncha story stuff needs to get compressed into just 12 episodes)

I'm enjoying the hell out of this silly show it's fucking BUCKWILD. I can't remember the last show that made me laugh this much I am just constantly chimpanzee screaming at the screen Wasn't super sure at first because I was a bit "???" about where this was going in the first few eps but oh my god. It's def become a fav now. It's for sure meant to be a parody of itself/commentary on the entire mecha anime genre and all the tropes that it's loaded with but then the story actually gets interesting too. The TWISTS. IDK it just seems like they had so much fun making this Also, sentient robot characters yippee! (That stuff just seems to be super rare, I've always kinda wondered why, but it's like the mecha genre is allergic to the concept unless you go full into Transformers territory (which is its own whole thing at that point.) Like idk maybe I'm the weird one for loving that idea, but I do wish more of that existed outside of the context of parody or "for little kids" or whatever. Anyway I'll take whatever I can get on that front. I'm adopting all of these idiots) Cupiridas is my fav, Extremely Silly Guy. Kunus (Cunus?) is completely off her shits but I actually love that super wingy design. Pessimism has some really cool silhouette nonsense going on, can def approve of straying from the usual humanoid look. I could throw in some sketches of the main mechs (Bravern, Superbia) but they already get most of the fan art, so I wanted to doodle some of the others..

[mpelskuyyy]

Strength of a Gorilla, Dominance of a Chimpanzee, Curiosity and Problem Solving of an Orangutan, Playfulness and Compassion of a Bonobo 🦧🌿

Here are some Blazar art I did recently!! Lately I've been hooked into the world of apes, thanks to The Planet of the Apes and Godzilla x Kong. Learning about apes is so much fun!! When I have the opportunity to draw a certain giant of light with similar traits, I couldn't hold back 😎👍

Also I think I kinda fw Blazarc yeah they're pretty neat 👍👍

[rappaccini]

okay. i've already autopsied tua but a final overview may be in order. i'll do it one more time.

season one was the only good season of umbrella academy. it had issues, but those issues didn't yet compromise the story or the themes. season one had a stylized production, great cast who at that point were still playing their characters instead of themselves, strong story that mostly carried (though there was some filler), and fantastically coherent themes. the cracks in the foundation were always there. but they could have been fixed.

season two was bad, but entertaining enough to hide its flaws. it had a bigger budget, glossier production value, more action, a cool new setting, more Fun Moments, enough momentum from the source material to mostly fill up the season, and the character assassination didn't have time to reach its consequences yet so everyone acting like the fandomified version of themselves worked for the people who were just here for the fun. it also dropped in the summer of 2020, when people were desperate for escapist entertainment, and there was little superhero fare to compete with (and when the protests happening that summer had people wanting to Say Something about civil rights without actually wanting to change anything). the bar was lower, and season 2 cleared it. but season 2's story broke. look back at the actual story, and you'll see it.

season three was bad, and not entertaining enough to hide its flaws. it had some interesting ideas and good moments, but the whole thing was a slog. the pacing was terrible, the character assassination couldn't be denied anymore, and the momentum from the comics ran out and left the writers to their own devices, which revealed they had no plan, no substantive creative backbone, and no understanding of what they were making. season three could have saved the show with a hail mary of tight writing to pick up the slack, but quadrupled down on the problems and guaranteed it was past the point of no return.

season four was terrible. somehow with a reduced episode count it still dragged, every single character has no growth, the basic logic of the story is missing and the continuity is a mess. and ending the story about abuse victims trying to heal on them concluding that they should all just kill themselves makes the story both pointless and rotten. at this point it was a given. you can't recover from two bad seasons back to back. season two shot the show in the gut, season three let it bleed out instead of healing it, and season four kicked its corpse a few times for a couple klaus jokes, then confirmed that its very existence was a mistake. very meta.

so. what were the cracks in the foundation.

the lack of respect for the source material. as soon as they tried a plot that had no connection to the original comics, they were fucked. but even before season four, they were all over the place. in fact they still haven't adapted most of the comics. john perseus, calhoun, deever, dr terminal, the academy at war with each other in the 1960s, the actual purpose of hotel oblivion, the chimpanzees everywhere, the 1980s period setting, clarissa and oscar, the coming of the squid monster, carla the sparrow, grace having her own secret agenda, the actual character of jennifer? just not here. even the raygun gothic aesthetic is watered down and eventually barely even present.

the spinelessness of the creative team. as early as season 2, they were throwing character arcs and themes in the trash to beg the fans to love them. they had no plan and just wanted cheap thrills.

the lack of internal rules. the time travel mechanics don't make sense. viktor's powers just do whatever. lila's powers eventually just do whatever. the central reveal that vanya's medication had been repressing her powers, set up by klaus using drugs to do the same, is undone by season 2's climax revolving around vanya somehow using her powers despite being drugged. the 'marigold' reveal about their powers makes no sense (why does luther get his body back? we don't know.). there are no stakes with no clear world limitations.

the good victim bad victiming. as early as season 1, the show was arguing that harold jenkins is irredeemable for killing his abusive dad. that should've been your first warning that they were going to try to redeem reginald and have the academy basically kill themselves in the end.

the lack of continuity. as early as season 1, the writers forgot number five had a time travel briefcase sitting in the library, or that helen cho's body was in harold's house when he, allison and diego search it. then they forget when luther got disfigured in season 2. then they forgot how the powers work. then they forget literally everything about the story.

the racism. all the characters of color get the worst plotlines in season 1. allison loses her narrative in season 2 and gets it replaced with a civil rights plotline that concludes that 'hey, there's a black president someday!' diego and lila prance through the jim crow south without dealing with segregation as allison is hatecrimed every episode.

the sexism. look back at how all the female characters are treated. look back at how allison's mistreatment of patrick and claire is glossed over, and lila fully gets away with manipulating diego. look at how vanya's 'redemption' is all about finding maternal instincts she never had until season 2. look at how allison's assault of luther is dismissed the way it never would have been if the genders were swapped. look at how sloane is juxtaposed against allison.

the homophobia. the queer characters were either stereotyped or used as glaad award bait. the queerbait of ben and klaus's entire dynamic.

the ableism. in the comics, luther has mobility aids and his disfigurement is treated like a debilitating condition, not a punchline. his eating disorder isn't mocked. vanya's in a wheelchair after she's shot and goes through months of physical therapy and is still never the same. allison is an amputee. diego has one eye and severe ptsd. everyone's mental illness is taken seriously, including and especially klaus's addiction. in the show these elements are downplayed, absent or fuel for quirky moments.

the show is full of filler. the murder mystery plot, the meritech plot, allison following leonard around, the day that was/wasn’t…. even in season 1, there wasn't enough material to make ten episodes. there was never enough for a ten episode run for any season. and yet somehow the one season with the right runtime still drags.

the spectacle. in season 2 they fully lean into it over substance. case in point: the dance sequence.

actually i'll go into that in detail because the dance sequence sums up the whole show and its downfall.

in season one, the pilot's iconic i-think-we're-alone-now dance sequence was an emotional moment that symbolized how all the characters feel isolated and disconnected from each other, but are secretly interconnected and far more in sync than they realize. the song was catchy, but "i think we're alone now" is literally a commentary on the story it's playing over: now that the academy's abuser is dead, they can finally unwind and love each other, and they can fix their problems by literally "running as fast as they can, holding onto one another's hands." -- and how does the season end? by them doing just that.

in season two, allison, klaus and vanya's salon dance is meaningless because vanya has no clue who these people are, klaus has never given a shit about vanya before (watch season one. he doesn't care.), and allison should hate her at this point in the story. it's just there for fun... but if you swapped vanya with ben it would work as a joyful reunion between these three people. the concept of the dance is fine, but the decision to make it a fanservice moment throws it off.

in season three, the dance sequence comes out of nowhere as a ~wacky random fun moment~ to call back to the first season. the footloose song has nothing to do with the story, it's just fun and catchy. there is no substance to the spectacle anymore. it's just dumb fun.

and season four ends in 'i think we're alone now' for no reason other than to ask the viewer to remember when the show was good. no fun, just dumb.

... let's look back at the themes season one sets up.

the road to recovery takes a very long time, and you will fall off it and have to climb back on.

corporations don’t have your back. they’re soulless and they want to suck the life out of you.

abuse does not make nice people. abuse does not make happy people. there are no good victims or bad victims. (except leonard, i guess.)

it’s difficult to tell where programming stops and free will starts; toxic behavior begets toxic behavior, and we have to own up to it, stop it, and resolve to be better.

redemption is possible. the bad things you did in the past don’t define your future.

you're better together than apart. 

time. changes. everything. it isn’t too late to have the life and the love you wanted. it isn’t too late to realize your talents, or become a better person, or free yourself from a bad situation. it isn’t too late to get together, or to make up or to change your mind. there are no lost causes. the world is worth saving. your enemies are worth showing mercy to. your relationships and friendships and broken families can be salvaged and reshaped into something new and better.

things are fucked, but if we give it everything we have, we can save it, and it’s worth taking up that fight, because nothing is set in stone.

fuck it, be happy. 

remember those?

i'm gonna get into it character by character:

luther.

his entire plotline was meant to be about realizing he was abused, disavowing his abuser and finding his confidence to become the leader he never got to be and go after the love he lost with allison and make a family with her and claire. that was his starting point.

and the fandom hated him rabidly. they said he was just as bad as his father, insisted that he had no redeemable qualities, made fun of his body and his traumas, took the situation with vanya and removed all the moral grays to call him evil over it, and insisted that he was Somehow Abusing Allison.

in season 2, luther has conveniently disowned and confronted reginald offscreen before the plot starts.

he immediately apologizes to vanya, who is an amnesiac and can't actually hold him accountable for hurting her, and the situation is never mentioned again.

his body dysmorphia is played for laughs.

his intelligence and leadership qualities are gone and he's just a bumbling idiot. remember when luther was an astronaut who effectively kept up a faulty space station for four years on his own? could you believe this dumbass was that guy?

he's a punching bag for the fans who hated him.

and season 3 seals the deal. he's still an idiot, he's still hideous.

his romance with allison is destroyed as offensively as possible to reassure the fans who hated alluther.

his romance with sloane is a clumsy attempt to keep the payoff he and allison should have had into the story as they're placating the fans who hate them.

and in season 4, he's... a stripper. he never finds a way to love his body, he just conveniently doesn't have it anymore, and he's still treated like a joke for it.

he never meaningfully takes command of the academy, he just stops trying to.

the wife season 3 insists he loves so much is gone and he doesn't give a shit.

he never even confronts allison for assaulting him, or reconciles with her and has a significant relationship with claire.

he decides to just die.

his entire character trajectory was aborted after only one season. he spent 75% of the runtime with nothing to do, because the fandom hated him and the writers were too cowardly to follow through with his character.

diego.

his entire plotline was meant to be about letting go of his aggression issues by finding his place in the family, reforming his rivalry with luther into a deep friendship based on mutual support and unpacking his 30 year history with vanya in order to finally be happy and in love with her after facilitating her redemption.

and his character's arc is dependent on others....

so in season 2 when luther's arc was canned, so was diego's journey towards letting go of his ego and finding a way to support luther after spending his whole life being pitting against him.

in season 2, when allison's arc was canned, diego ended up with the commission / jfk assassination plot that was never meant to be his. his entire dynamic with number five was hers.

in season 2, because klaus took his vietnam plot in season 1, diego doesn't have one anymore, so there's no way to meaningfully unpack how he feels like his only purpose is violence. instead, his anger issues are totally ignored.

and in season 2, when vanya was split into elliot-page-playing-himself and lila, the romance went out the window too. yes, diego falls in love with lila, but he barely knows her, and all she's done is manipulate, drug, kidnap and hurt him and the academy... yet all that bad behavior is totally ignored in the Show About Abuse And Trauma, because they have chemistry. there's no deep, complex history between them that could have anchored the relationship. the redemption arc itself is rushed and undeserved.

oh, also, he doesn't feel upset about eudora anymore. never mentions how he got her killed, or that he loved her.

then in season 3, diego has nowhere to go but deeper into his romance arc. he has no tension with luther to resolve (and with the show assassinating alluther, there's no 'we both love our girlfriends and want to make it home to tell them that, so let's get over our bullshit and help each other get there' revelation like in the comics). his relationship with lila gets even weirder, with her... deciding to babytrap him, getting a kid killed in the process, and it being framed as quirky and hot. and no eudora again.

and in season 4, diego is a family man who doesn't give a shit when his kids are wiped from existence, whose marriage is about to implode. who decides to just die.

there's just... nothing. he's just himbo #2.

allison.

her entire plotline was meant to be about realizing how culpable she is in the abuse of her family, unlearning those manipulative tendencies and figuring out how to exist authentically, making amends with the people she hurt-- especially vanya and her ex-husband and daughter-- and restarting her life with someone she can love: luther.

allison isn't formally character assassinated until season 3, but she was wrong from the start.

because in season 1, they had her be already past all those things in the pilot episode because they're too sexist to let women be messy. allison is conveniently totally in control of her behavior and has already decided not to use her rumor anymore. she already accepts responsibility for hurting her ex and daughter.

and the writers refused to let her and vanya be angry at each other because ~we don't believe in girl hate~. leading to allison forgiving her for slitting her throat and leaving her to die.

in season 2, the writers wouldn't give her the commission plotline from the comics. allison was the protagonist of the dallas arc, who had a complex story about being willing to alienate her loved ones in order to save them, being ruthless enough to belong at the commission, making deals with the devil to get her powers back and save her the academy.... and unknowingly creating a paradox where she is responsible for the traumatizing incident of watching someone be killed when she was a girl.

instead, allison is saddled with a c-plot about how you have to be nice when you protest, and how fighting back violently against the racist who tried to literally hatecrime you yesterday makes you just as bad as him. rewatch that scene. look at how it’s framed. that’s the takeaway.

and throughout allison's time in dallas, none of the academy check in with her on how she's doing. no one cares. even when she was attacked at a protest they all know she was at, no one asks her if she's okay.

instead of showcasing allison's ruthlessness and dedication to her family, we meet her having conveniently moved on after her daughter was killed, happily settled into dallas with a new relationship, and having given up on ever finding a way home.

instead of showing allison learn to adapt to life without her rumor, we meet her having already figured out how to get a job, make friends, and have a relationship without it. she doesn’t even have to find the courage to join the activists because she did already.

instead of allison learning how to live without a physical voice, she can just talk again. her power's just... back.

instead of allison being rightfully furious at vanya for disabling her, depowering her, stranding her alone in the jim crow south for years, and killing her child... she instantly forgives her. dance party! no girl hate here!

her romance with luther is intact, but the writers know you hate it, so they're trying to please you by giving her a romance with a man who she doesn't trust with any information about her, who doesn't trust her, and who allison doesn't hesitate to abandon five days after luther shows up. but hey they have chemistry, so they were Truly In Love, apparently. no seriously, the raymond romance is bad.

season 3 tries to do the heavy lifting with the messier aspects of allison, but this happens too late, and it mostly functions as a way to assassinate her character to turn her into an angry black woman stereotype so they can kill her romance with luther as meanly as possible, and set sloane up to take her place.

she suddenly cares that her daughter is dead and that viktor technically killed her after an entire season of not caring. and her decision to alienate the academy to save her rings false because she spent two years not caring. why now.

her romance with luther implodes when the writers decide to just do what the fandom wants and make it Toxic All Along, after two seasons of framing it in the most positive light possible. and allison sits front row at his wedding to a woman he barely knows, smiling through it like that wasn't supposed to be her, or like she didn't just assault him.

because viktor and allison have had such an artificially nice relationship, there's no payoff to them learning to love each other again, like viktor encouraging the group to sympathize with allison afterher betrayal.

the effect of this is that at the end of season 3, allison has regressed into the person she was before season 1, but do you even want to see her get better or get along with the academy after she tried to assault luther, killed viktor's stepson, and sold everyone down the river to live in a fantasy world?

good news! all that doesn't matter in season 4! luther and viktor never confront allison for doing that to them. the whole family's over her betraying them. raymond? oh, he's just gone. yeah, he left between seasons. we won't even unpack the implications, or that allison's right back to being a divorcee whose husband abandoned her after learning what she did with her rumor, trying to live without that power. oh and don't worry, she isn't dependent on her power anymore. yeah, we just solved that offscreen again.

claire's here, but is there even a point.

allison and klaus's relationship is intact, but because the show won't seriously examine klaus's addiction, we can't discuss how they enable each other, or how allison's manipulative tendencies or klaus's flightiness and addiction might be affecting claire. no more intergenerational trauma discussion here.

allison has nothing to do because slowly learning how to admit how much harm she inflicted on her loved ones, live without her power, and earn vanya/viktor's trust back was her arc and it's... all over the fucking place.

then, she decides to just die.

klaus.

his entire plotline was meant to be about realizing how much damage his addiction has done to himself and his family, getting clean and conquering the crippling fear of his power that made him an addict in the first place.

then in season 2, he's clean offscreen. no exploration of klaus trying to stay on the wagon for the first time in decades. we're just three years into him being totally fine sober. no complications.

and his relapse is played for laughs instead of treated like a devastating moment.

in season 2, his grief over dave is glossed over. yes, we see dave for five minutes, which is more than the three minutes he got in season 1, but klaus is Moved On Already. no discussion of what this relationship meant to him (... or how ben was affected, being the third wheel). no rumination. just a quick 'here's dave to shut the fans up' and on we go.

in season 2, klaus's excitement about exploring his powers' potential is gone already. yeah, he figured them out offscreen.

his cult plotline replaces his comics story of being a clubkeeper in vietnam and becoming a father (yes, klaus has a baby in vietnam), and the entire plotline is a mean-spirited metanarrative about how dumb the writers think his fangirls are. like. fucking look at the narrative. they're making fun of you.

and yet there are no serious consequences to the implications of klaus immediately turning into his dad the second he gets a little power. he isolated a bunch of people from the outside world, derailed their lives, tattooed them, got them hooked on the idea that The End Is Nigh and Only He Can Save Them, got them to have sex with him, and only stopped manipulating them because he was bored. not even because he realized it was wrong.

his relationship with ben is queerbaited to hell, and has no resolution.

he spends the entire season deliberately keeping ben isolated from the rest of the academy, and this is never meaningfully examined. klaus is an absolute bastard in season 2, and the writers don't acknowledge it.

by season 3, he's just a joke machine and a flamboyant stereotype. he never has a substantive interaction with sparrow ben, or struggles with his sobriety or his addiction in a way that takes it seriously. even his meeting with his mother feels empty.

and in season 4, the mothers of agony plotline from the comics is so disjointed that it's meaningless. in the comics, this is his lowest low, that ben helps him come back from.

any depth to the implications of his immortality is gone. it's just funny that he's a germophobe.

(... immortality? how'd he get killed in the first season apocalypse timeline then. no answer? okay.)

any potential in his relationship with allison and claire is gone.

like luther, his crucial development is skipped over and he spends half the season wandering in circles making jokes.

and he decides to just die.

five.

his entire plotline was meant to be about learning to trust the academy and work within them as a team member rather than running off and doing his own thing. and about slowly learning to be a person instead of a vehicle for the mission.

in season 2, he inexplicably lets the commission go and trusts they're Good Now thanks to new management, after making it clear in season 1 that he can't ever trust them.

in season 2, his antipathy with vanya is transferred to lila. he never accepts responsibility for his role in leading to her isolation.

in season 2, instead of trying to get the family together, he's still working on his own.

in season 3, instead of riding hard for viktor and sympathizing with him, he calmly tells him he'll put him down if he ever steps out of line again and ignores him the rest of the time.

for three straight seasons, he's the plot driver. but three seasons in with no other characters having a coherent arc, the plot driver became all he was. he couldn't slow down or have an emotional moment because he's the only thing moving things forward and all the people who can bring out those emotions are so ooc that it won't work.

then in season 4... oh boy.

he's not the plot driver anymore because there's no plot.

five slowly trying to embrace domesticity could have been interesting... but boy does it fall flat.

five created the commission! no, we won't discuss the nature of him being responsible for his own abuse, or perpetuating the cycle that led to the apocalypse and the academy's misery.

five falls in love... with his brother's wife, who he hates, who hates him because he hog-tied and tortured her parents to death in front of her when she was a little girl. okay.

then he decides to just die.

ben

his entire presence in the story was building to a reveal that he's only staying with klaus because he's in love with him.

in season 2 they queerbait that connection for ten episodes by framing him as a literally possessive boyfriend, give him a 'love interest' in jill that makes no sense, kill him off in a scene that makes no sense because that's not how their powers work, and have the vaguest 'by the way he was in love with you' reveal via vanya that feels like an afterthought.

klaus keeps ben from talking to anyone in the academy for the whole season for no reason. he never mentions why, ben never gets mad at him. there are no emotional consequences. ben spent an entire season able to talk to the academy and inform the world and nothing ever comes of this.

in season 3, ben's a totally different character. none of the umbrella academy have emotional reactions to seeing him alive.

not even klaus.

and he feels nothing for them.

he also feels nothing for the sparrows, who drop like flies around him without him giving a shit.

in season 4 he's a completely different character again.

no interest in reuniting with his sparrow academy mates, or the umbrella academy.

he's a crypto bro for some reason.

the south korea subway ending stinger? idk where that went.

the show does use the comics' likely endgame of ben being the portal through which the final antagonist arrives. but they do it in such a strange, meaningless way.

the romance with jennifer comes out of nowhere and makes no sense. it's unclear why he'd want to become a blob with her. there's no emotion anchoring this plot.

also, jennifer was a large, dark-skinned black woman in the comics and... isn't here. (it's also unclear if jennifer was romantically involved with ben in the comics, or if she might have been one of the kid's mothers. so uh. we'll see how that ends up.)

his tentacles come out of his back sometimes. huh?

the reveal that he was killed by their father and they were all brainwashed makes no sense. especially given that allison has brainwashing powers that are never used to cover this up.

there's never a meaningful payoff for ben as a character.

and vanya/viktor…

to start, seasons 1-2 will call her vanya because that's how the character was written, performed and received. seasons 3-4 will refer to him as viktor. that's why the name/pronouns switch back and forth in this post. those are two different characters.

alright i'm gonna say it: the show basically killed off vanya at the start of s2 and split her into two characters: lila, who's the white violin from the comics-- and has vanya's style, punk musicianship, romance with diego, mutual hate with five, alliance with the commission, status as the most powerful character, and role as the antagonist who needs a redemption arc that rejoins her with the family-- …. and the character that would become viktor, who's just elliot page playing a flattened version of himself for token queer points.

the show literally got rid of its main character one season in, sped past all the conflict with the academy to the part where they're all besties again, and gave all the interesting shit to an oc. and they did it because they cared more about profiting off of elliot page's queerness than trusting him to do his job as a professional actor, and supporting that performance in the face of a fandom that only saw him for his sexuality/gender identity.

season 2 skips over vanya learning to use her power and lose her fear of it. she's just good at it now. also, the character will never use the violin to channel her powers again, and will never again acknowledge her love of music, because elliot page didn't like playing the violin. like, sir. what are you doing playing a character called 'the white violin' then.

season 2 skips over her rage and hatred of the academy. instead of being afraid of them, avoiding them, and being hostile whenever they interact, she's instantly cool with them, dismisses their years of mistreatment and dismissal, and is part of the family with no friction despite trying to kill them, blowing up the world, and killing their niece.

season 2 totally resets her personality. amnesia! she's nice again! we know you hated her when she was angry, so don't worry about that!

season 2 gives her a romance with someone who she has chemistry with, but who fundamentally doesn't understand her. the entire relationship is just fanservice. remember the lesbian vanya truthers who thought elliot page could only play characters who were lesbians because he identified as a lesbian at the time? remember their "give vanya a girlfriend" whining? this entire plotline was for them.

season 2 hands the moment where the academy understands vanya and empathizes with her in a moment of superpower meltdown.... to harlan.

in season 3, diet elliot page just becomes overt. it's great that page's transition was incorporated into the show at his request, and at this point the damage to the character's so massive that at least they're being honest about the character just being a different entity from vanya entirely. like, fuck it. you already gave all of vanya's character to the oc. might as well.

though it's great that the transition is quickly incorporated into the story, it happens so quickly that a very easy plotline for viktor in s3 is just rushed past. he has so little to do, the transition is such an obvious fix, and they just... don't do it.

because viktor magically has full control of his powers, there's no more growth from him. and at this point his powers just do whatever. who even knows what his abilities are. the show sure doesn't.

viktor is a beloved member of the academy with no friction whatsoever, even though they're trapped in an alternate dimension because of him

allison's anger at him is demonized instead of deconstructed.

the harlan plotline certainly exists. very funny that the show casually reveals that vissy ruined sissy's life and never goes into the emotional consequences of this.

in season 4... yeah this character has nothing to do. he never expresses anger at allison over killing his stepson. his powers are even more vague. he's in canada for some reason, just to complete the transformation into elliot page.

then he decides to just die.

the main character of the story was essentially killed off one season in. the whole thing became adrift because without vanya, there's no main character anymore. no central antagonist with history with the academy, no emotional weight to their connection, no payoff to a slow redemption arc that unfolds over multiple seasons. just shenanigans.

lila

took over the vanya storyline in season 2.

lila is vanya from the comics.

vanya's hatred of the umbrella academy and antagonism towards them? it's now lila's.

vanya's alliance with the commission to destroy the world? nope. lila's the commission's ally now.

vanya's status as the most powerful character? now it's lila.

vanya and five's mutual hate? now belongs to lila and five. even the fiveya vibe rubberbanded into That in season 4.

vanya's slow redemption from a hateful villain of the academy into one of its most crucial members is handed to lila. who barely knows these people, has only ever hurt them, and yet is treated with more empathy with them after three days than vanya received in thirty years.

vanya being set up as the character who'll save the umbrellas from the sparrows? nope, that's lila now.

vanya's romance with diego? that's lila's now. no, it doesn't make sense but they have chemistry.

then in season 3... oh god. instead of unpacking lila's severe mommy issues from being abused by the handler, she's just over them now.

the academy immediately trust and embrace her even though all she's ever done is hurt them.

and for some reason, this character who's shown no maternal instincts randomly decides she wants to be a mom because her one night stand with diego, who she knew for a few days, got her pregnant.

and she tries to convince him a little white boy is their kid to test if he'll be a good father and doesn't give a shit when that child turns to dust. what are we doing here.

then in season 4, their romance doesn't even mean anything. neither does their family. they're already on the verge of a divorce. which... yeah, follows, given what their romance actually consisted of.

then she hooks up with number five, who killed her family in front of her when she was a girl. what.

.... and then we die.

the whole thing came apart in season 2. you just didn't notice yet.

and here's where i get cunty and set aside my belief that writers have an inherent responsibility to never kowtow to their fans no matter what, because the fandom is a big part of how things went wrong, and someone has to talk about it.

the umbrella academy begun as a complex metaphor for recovering from abuse, using superheroes in a gothic-adjacent setting. every single character's power is allegorical of an attribute one may take on from living in an abusive home. (and part of the missed potential in lila is the failure to fit her into that metaphor too). and the metaphor is literally in the name: the umbrella academy.

it's an academy. not a family. the characters are only adoptive siblings because reginald needed a legal way to bind them to him. they grew up in a twisted boarding school, which they explain again and again, and call each other siblings out of habit, which they also explain. and they are choosing as adults to overcome the trauma that pitted them against each other to become a found family.

... i'm gonna say it. the pseudoincest is a vital part of the story, the same way it is in the comics. that was how they were going to love each other. their ability to love each other was the sign that the brainwashing failed, and the found family was, like actual found families, going to involve some of those people pairing off romantically. allison and luther. ben and klaus. vanya and diego-or-five. that was the story.

the umbrella academy is both a giant metaphor for healing from a dysfunctional family, and for finding a queer found family (... it's the umbrella academy. that's the part of the allegory that's still unfulfilled. everyone in this story is queercoded, not just klaus and vanya/viktor. the show massively dropped the ball in not exploring this deeper.) and the fandom screamed, whined and harassed their way into having it scribbled out of the story, and the writers were cowardly enough to do it for you. if you're wondering why they kept trying to sneak alluther in through the back in season 2, still had a harcest couple get married in season 3, and pivoted to shipping lila so hard, that's why. it's the most important thing about the story, and you hated it. is it any shock that the story ends with all their relationships stunted, and no love between them.

remember all those themes from season 1? remember how you guys hated them? remember how you concluded that luther is an irredeemable monster, and klaus is an innocent little baby, and vanya is somehow both and neither? remember how you were completely uninterested in watching everyone redeem themselves, and wanted to skip to the Fun Sibling Moments? remember how you immediately dismissed half the characters as lost causes, and directly demanded that the writers not let the characters love each other? congrats, the writers were listening!

the umbrella academy comic is meant for adults. the show was made for a wider audience and the writers were totally unprepared for the fandom of antifan teens they got. and they overhauled the show to make it what that fandom wanted. more fun, less substance. making luther a bumbling idiot and sidestepping his entire arc. making diego a himbo. skipping allison's complexities until it's time to demonize her for them. making klaus into the cartoon version of himself. making vanya into diet elliot page and handing all her storylines to a new character. dismantling the show's core tone to make it a fanservice carnival. creating vissy, allmond and dielila in the first place, and coining the ship names before the fandom even chose them. making alluther toxic all along, and swapping her out with a white-passing replacement. it was all for you.

then when they ended the show, they flipped off the fandom on the way out. of course it was going to end like that. you spent five years playing oppression olympics, making bigotry self-righteous, and declaring you didn't want a transformative ending for these characters. the writers gave the fandom the hopeless, nihilistic, meandering, substanceless, nonsensical ending it was demanding all along.

so. where do we go from here.

first of all, to ao3, for those of you who haven't moved on.

next, to the comics. assuming way ever wants to finish them, now that he's received an overwhelming message that the audience for his story hates it and prefers the bastardized versions of his characters. i get the sense he'll probably leave it unfinished. i don't blame him.

then... the umbrella academy was a massive success. it's going to get a reboot someday. in 10-15 years, we're gonna get it back. my hope is that

whoever has that responsibility has a clear vision and the talent to pull it off, the backbone to stick with it, and more loyalty to the source material. no subverting expectations for the hell of it. no kowtowing to antifandom. make a plan and stick to it and have confidence in it. hopefully, the next showrunner won't be a terrible person.

the next version of tua will be mature. so the adults who will watch will hopefully be old enough to understand what they're seeing. this truly isn't a show for kids. the fandom has proven that. let's not do it again.

that it'll be animated. the incredible visual aesthetic of the show and its edgier elements could never have been captured in live-action. and now that adult animation's starting to arrive, including on netflix, maybe in a decade or two we'll finally get the umbrella academy fully realized.

anyway. that's my piece.

[bellaxgiornata]

OMG—I wanna ask the boys for sure—what is their inner animal (respectively) that THEY think they have versus what you think for them, vs what they would assign for each other???

🤣🤣🤣

#letthechaosbegin

If you wanted chaos with this internal dialogue, you certainly found it 😅 The moment I read this ask, two of the boys immediately started causing trouble which is why it took a bit to get this answered 😆 As always, it's below the cut because this was long.

Bella: Welcome back to another round of ASK THE BOYS!!

Matt, muttering under his breath: Always got to yell that now, don't you?

Frank, roughly elbowing Matt on the couch: Let the lady have her fun, would ya?

Michael, ignoring the pair beside him: What's the question this time, pet?

Bella, glancing down at her phone: Looks like a multi-part question dealing with what your inner animals are.

Frank, eyes narrowing: Inner animal?

Bella: Yeah, and it looks like they want to know what I think each of you are, what you think your inner animal is, and then what you think each others’ inner animal is.

Frank, chuckling to himself: This'll be good.

Michael: Why don't ya start us off then, pet? Might need a minute to think.

Bella: Okay, well. I guess for Frank I'd say timber wolf. The Punisher gives me lone wolf vibes, but before that you used to be a part of a pack–whether it was your family or your Marine unit. And timber wolves typically mate for life, too, which screams loyal to me. I think you're a pretty loyal person–and pretty damn terrifying if someone messes with those you care about. So yeah. Wolf vibes all around.

Frank, nodding: Alright. Guess I can see that.

Bella: And for Matt, since he gives cat vibes, I'd say a leopard. Specifically a black panther. They're solitary animals, very territorial, and they're great climbers. Sort of like how you work alone, defend Hell’s Kitchen specifically despite it being such a small area, and you climb buildings like nobody's business. Plus, you know, the black suit and all.

Matt, grinning: Better than what I thought you'd pick.

Bella: And as for Mikey, well, I get grizzly bear vibes.

Michael, rolling his eyes: Is this a reference to the beard and chest hair again?

Bella, shaking her head: Not exactly, though now that you mention it–

Michael, mumbling: Figures…

Bella: No, wait! Hear me out. Grizzly bears are actually not aggressive unless provoked or caught off guard, otherwise they kind of mind their own business and want to be left alone. But obviously they'll protect their young and would savagely tear you apart if you fucked with them. I mean, we all know you don't want to be the killer your family forces you to be, you'd rather get out and live a quiet life. You just want a relationship with your daughter, Anna. But if anyone messed with her, you'd absolutely kill them without a second thought.

[Michael, running a hand across his mouth and humming thoughtfully.]

Bella, gently nudging his leg with a foot: See? There was a reason besides your glorious chest hair.

Matt, brows furrowing together: Glorious chest hair? Did you just actually say that?

Bella, waving off his comment: Okay, so why don't you guys each say what you think your inner animal is before you choose for each other next?

Frank, shrugging: I like the wolf thing. I'll go with that.

Matt, nodding: Yeah, I think I'll stick with the panther idea you had.

Bella, frowning: Seriously? You aren't even going to give it any more thought? [Looking hopefully over at Michael.] Please tell me you're not just going to say grizzly bear now?

Michael, awkwardly scratching the back of his neck: Uh, no. I s'pose…a dog? Generally don't fight unless provoked and they're usually considered friendly?

Bella, releasing a sigh: Fine. At least you put in more effort than those two. Now what do you think each others’ inner animal is?

Frank, immediately tossing a thumb at Matt: Chimpanzee. He's always climbing on buildings and making too much noise with his mouth.

Matt, frowning: It's called talking, Frank.

Frank, leaning back into the couch: More like chimpanzee noises to me. And they're territorial, too.

Michael, quietly chiming in: I'd still say stray cat for him.

Matt, frowning: Well then Frank is a hippo. Large and incredibly aggressive.

Frank, turning and shooting Matt a dirty look: The fuck you call me?

[Bella, burying her face in her hands while Frank and Matt begin to bicker on the couch.]

Michael, once more quietly chiming in: I picture him as more of a hawk. Or an eagle. Kinda stalks his prey from a distance before takin’ his shot.

Bella, glancing up at him: Well thank you for making some level of effort here while the old married couple over there just fights.

Matt, glowering: We are not an old married couple!

Frank, scowling: He's the last goddamn person I'd wanna be shackled to.

Bella, annoyed: Can we get back on track? You still need to pick an animal for Mikey.

Matt and Frank simultaneously: Dog.

Bella, throwing her hands up in defeat: Wow, really making an effort, you two. Great job.

Frank, rounding on Matt again: Look what you did, Red. You went and upset her.

Matt, eyebrows rising up onto his forehead: Me? You're the one not taking her game seriously!

[Matt and Frank return to arguing.]

Bella, focusing on Michael: You want a coffee? Cause I could use a coffee. They're making my head hurt.

Michael, nodding and rising from the couch: Yes. I'd love one.

Bella, heading to the kitchen with Michael: So what would my inner animal be?

Michael, nervously making a face: Uh…well…

Bella, shaking her head: Nevermind. Forget I asked. Let's just make some coffee.

[phoebepheebsphibs]

Double-Mutated Mikey

Chapter 47/Epilogue: Mikey Done Good

Continued from the short story written by @boots-with-the-fur-club

Prev

It has been a month since Mikey's second rescue from the TCRI.

The lair is bright again. There is laughter again. Everyone smiles and jokes and has fun again.

It's a home again.

Casey Jones Jr. smiles as he works to tidy up the lair, moving the empty and flattened cardboard boxes over to a side tunnel so they can be placed in a dumpster later. Usually, none of them mind the clutter or the mess from moving, but they're having guests over tonight and Casey wants to make a good impression.

Speaking of, CJ gets a notif from the security system that April has arrived. She waltzes in moment later, smiling brightly.

"Whattup, family!" she yells loudly, announcing her arrival to all who didn't get the notification. "It's your favourite person! Apriiiiiiiiiiiiil O'Neil!!"

CJ rolls his eyes as Donatello and S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N.2.0 come out to greet her.

"Hey, April!" Donnie responds, quickly fistbumping her in greeting. "How was class?"

"Pretty good. My report got an A, so I'd think I'm a shoo-in for the competitive writing finals this year. I heard the winners get to intern for Channel 6!"

Donnie rolls his eyes and smiles.

"You always did like the news."

"Congrats, bromigo!" S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N.2.0 cheers, activating a few streamers and confetti, much to Casey's annoyance at having to clean the hall again.

"Where's everybody else?" April asks, glancing up and down the halls.

"Raph is still getting the dining room set up," Donnie says. "And Mikey's making dinner."

"Mikey is?" April asks, eyes wide, yet nowhere near as wide as her smile. "He's cooking again?"

"We've been practicing a few recipes," Casey announces proudly. "He felt confident enough to try making some of the food tonight."

"Lemme guess... pizza?" April chuckles as she follows the others into the living room to help Raphael set up. "I can't wait for another Mikey original! So, is everybody coming tonight?"

"My mom said she'll be here in a bit," Casey answers as he starts wiping down the table for the fourth time. "Agent Bishop and Honeycutt will be arriving within the next fifteen minutes, I think."

"Pops and Draxum are still waiting for Leo to wrap up his appointment. They're cuttin' it close, but Leo promised to be on time," Raph says as he carries a stack of plates into the room. "Which means he'll be fashionably late again."

Donnie sneers.

"You'd think a guy who can make portals to any place on earth would understand how to be punctual."

"I still can't believe it's been a month," April awes. "Everything flew by so fast!"

"And it doesn't help that the one day at the TCRI felt like a whole week," Raph groans. "Hey, who's in charge of silverware?"

"I got it," Casey offers, running into the kitchen and returning a moment later with the cutlery. "So, Mikey made pizza, Raph made breadsticks, and I made salad."

"I brought mini shish kabobs and dip," April offers, holding up a tupperware with grilled veggies on skewers.

"Sounds great! Mom mentioned bringing brownies..." Casey recalls, "Bishop and the Professor offered to pick up drinks, and Master Splinter and the Baron said they'd grab some Yokai hors d'oeuvre from the Hidden City vendors. So I think we'll be good!"

The group continue to set up the dinner table just as three more guests enter from the subway tunnel.

"I HAVE ARRIVED!!!" Cassandra yells loudly, waving her hockey stick around like a crazed chimpanzee as she runs.

Cass rushes forwards and wraps her arms around CJ as tightly as she can. He reciprocates with a laugh.

"ᴡᴇ ʜᴀᴠᴇ ᴀʟꜱᴏ ᴀʀʀɪᴠᴇᴅ," Fugitoid remarks as he and Bishop walk in next, "ʙᴜᴛ ᴇʟᴇᴄᴛᴇᴅ ᴛᴏ ᴅᴏ ꜱᴏ ɪɴ ᴀ ᴍᴜᴄʜ ᴄᴀʟᴍᴇʀ ᴍᴀɴɴᴇʀ."

"Hey, Professor!" Casey greets with a smile. "You're looking good. New upgrades?"

"ᴛʜᴀɴᴋ ʏᴏᴜ ꜰᴏʀ ɴᴏᴛɪᴄɪɴɢ. ᴅᴏɴᴀᴛᴇʟʟᴏ ʜᴀꜱ ʙᴇᴇɴ ᴇxᴛʀᴇᴍᴇʟʏ ʜᴇʟᴘꜰᴜʟ ᴛʜᴇꜱᴇ ᴘᴀꜱᴛ ꜰᴇᴡ ᴡᴇᴇᴋꜱ…"

"Anything for a fan of my work," Dee jokes. "And you've brought drinks. Any flavourless juice?"

"Sorry, just sodas," Bishop says, holding up a few grocery bags filled with large liters of name brand seltzers.

"We can't expect you to be perfect all the time," Donnie grumbles.

"Where's Mikey?" Bishop asks.

"If he heard Cass's war cry, then he should be here any second --"

Almost on cue, Mikey comes bounding out of the kitchen at full speed, pouncing at Cass and zipping around her waist and shoulders in excitement like a hyped-up cat. He eventually perches just above her shoulders, chirping excitedly and giving her a noogie. She laughs as she reaches up and pulls him down, matching his energy and nooging him right back.

Mikey laughs before releasing his hold on her and running over to Bishop and Fugitoid, reacting much more calmly and rising to stand on two legs for them.

"Hi, guys!" he says, a smile growing across his doughy and flour-caked face.

"ꜱᴏ ɢᴏᴏᴅ ᴛᴏ ꜱᴇᴇ ʏᴏᴜ ᴀɢᴀɪɴ, ᴍɪᴋᴇʏ!" Fugitoid greets. "ʏᴏᴜ'ʀᴇ ʟᴏᴏᴋɪɴɢ ᴡᴇʟʟ."

"Thanks! I'm all patched up now, see?" Mikey says as he enthusiastically shows off the large scars on his abdomen and neck. "My only complaint is the physical therapy's boring; but it is helping me to get back into my old hobbies!"

"I see you've taken up cooking?" Bishop asks, pulling a small chunk of sticky dough off Mikey's face.

"Oh, yeah. Whoops! I got a little carried away... but the pizza should be done in a while! Just enough time to talk about stuff and wait for the rest to get here! We can catch up!"

"Yeah, how's it going with the whole TCRI business?" Casey asks as he takes the brownies and sodas into the kitchen, the rest following after him and Mikey.

"Going really well," Bishop nods with a smile. "Which is surprising, considering everything. You'd think an evil corporation would try to hide their misdeeds, but what with all the leadership gone, everyone's turning on each other and revealing the truth!"

"Seriously?" Raph asks, eyes wide. "That's awesome!"

"Why haven't we heard anything about it on the news?" April asks.

"I doubt the local police will let any kind of news about a failed government study get in the public eye," Bishop sighs. "But they're handling it pretty well. Most scientists want to plea bargain, and from what I've heard the TCRI will be completely and permanently shut down within the next few days. Not just the sites stationed in NYC, but all over the globe! Then there's proceedings, court hearings, lawsuits from disgruntled employees for harassment, assault, and unfair work environments, just to name a few."

"Sounds like you have your hands full!" April laughs, moving aside as Mikey skirts behind her to retrieve a bottle of tomato sauce for the pizza.

"ᴀɴᴅ ᴡᴇ'ʀᴇ ᴊᴜꜱᴛ ɢᴇᴛᴛɪɴɢ ꜱᴛᴀʀᴛᴇᴅ!" Fugitoid chimes in. "ᴡɪᴛʜ ᴛʜᴇ ᴛᴄʀɪ ɪɴ ꜱʜᴀᴍʙʟᴇꜱ, ᴛʜᴇ ᴜɴɪᴛᴇᴅ ꜱᴛᴀᴛᴇꜱ ɢᴏᴠᴇʀɴᴍᴇɴᴛ ɪꜱ ʟᴏᴏᴋɪɴɢ ꜰᴏʀ ꜱᴏᴍᴇᴛʜɪɴɢ ɴᴇᴡ ᴛᴏ ᴛᴀᴋᴇ ɪᴛ'ꜱ ᴘʟᴀᴄᴇ!"

"And that's where you two come in, hm?" Donnie asks with a smirk.

"I think it's time we rebuilt the Earth Protection Force from the ground up," Bishop nods. "Make it the way it was supposed to be. Something we can actually rely on."

Mikey smiles brightly at the agent as he shreds the cheese over the pizza dough and tomato paste. Though in his distraction, he accidentally spreads the cheese onto the countertop rather than the pizza itself. He hastily scoops up the cheese and sprinkles it back wherever it looks needed.

"Well, you're perfect for the job!" Casey beams.

"And I know a few girl scouts who would be VERY EXCITED to help!" Cass exclaims, forgetting her inside voice for a moment.

"I'll take that under consideration," Bishop responds with a roll of his eyes. "I could use some extra help. There are a lot of bad guys out there..."

"Speaking of," Raph slides in, clearing his throat. "Any updates on a certain 'you know who' and her location?"

"Abigail Finn is still incognito," Bishop sighs. "Though, Donatello's facial tracking system and security measures have helped us to keep a few tabs on her. But she's staying discreet, keeping a low profile and avoiding anything illegal. Which is good."

"Just give me a reason to annihilate her," Donnie whispers to himself. "Or to at least let me go semi-lethal..."

"Have you made any attempts to arrest her?" Casey asks.

"We... considered it," Bishop sighs. "But we felt that it would be better to let it slide. If we did make any attempts, you can bet she'd try to twist the truth and reveal everything she knows about you guys."

"So essentially, you're at a stalemate," Casey grumbles.

"Pretty much. We know dirt on her, she knows dirt on us. So long as we stay out of each others' ways, we're fine."

"ᴇɴᴏᴜɢʜ ᴀʙᴏᴜᴛ ʜᴇʀ. ᴡʜᴀᴛ ᴀʙᴏᴜᴛ ʏᴏᴜ? ᴡʜᴀᴛ ʜᴀᴠᴇ ʏᴏᴜ ʙᴇᴇɴ ᴜᴘ ᴛᴏ?" Fugitoid asks.

"Mostly helpin' with recovery," Raph answers. "In different ways."

"ᴀɴᴅ ʜᴏᴡ ɪꜱ ʏᴏᴜʀ ʀᴇᴄᴏᴠᴇʀʏ ɢᴏɪɴɢ, ᴍɪᴄʜᴇʟᴀɴɢᴇʟᴏ?"

Mikey sighs as he shoves the pizza into the oven. Not a begrudging sigh, but more of a 'where do I start' kind of sigh.

"Well... it's been a lot. First was the whole bedridden thing. Then the physical therapy started. Case was a HUGE help with that, he's an expert on it! And after that... it was a mix of stuff. My memory's gotten better, thanks to Draxum's mystic goop. He said by the rate I'm healing at, all my memories should be back by the end of the month!"

"ᴛʜᴀᴛ ꜱᴏᴜɴᴅꜱ ɢʀᴇᴀᴛ!" Fugitoid remarks, though the 'mystic goop' comment flies right over his head.

"Yeah... but it's not always easy," Mikey admits. "I have some bad days, a few relapses. Sometimes I still forget names and call one of my brothers by their life-colour instead. Sometimes I talk in the third person instead of the first. Some days I can't talk at all! Walking is... still wacky and tough to get used to. I'm comfortable doing both two legs and four, but I'm faster on four. My vision still acts up, but I've learned to control it a bit better. Dee and I have been training it to shift on command instead of in reaction to light! All in all, adjusting is weird."

"I bet," Bishop nods.

"Wildest thing -- pun intended -- is the whole 'animalistic traits' junk that happens. Like, I still don't get some social cues?" Mikey admits. "Like most people shake hands, but I'll smell or sniff a person first. Most people hug, I climb on them and wrap my whole body around them like a snake. I'll growl if I'm angry. Sometimes I bite when I get startled. Stuff like that."

"Don't forget that one week where you kept making nests all over the lair and storing food in your room," Donnie chimes in.

"I'm just glad you haven't tried to mark your territory or anything," Raph jokes.

Mikey gives him a joking side-glare before continuing.

"Well anyways, it's been weird and confusing but I'm doing a lot better now. I'm really happy again! Which, I'll be honest... surprises me sometimes. The nightmares aren't as constant. They happen, and sometimes I wake up and I don't know where I am. But my family's there to help whenever. I didn't think I'd be this happy this much for a long time... But here we are!"

April starts tearing up out of joy and goes to hug Mikey, who laughs and hugs her back.

"ʜᴀᴠᴇ ʏᴏᴜ ʙᴇᴇɴ ᴏɴ ᴀɴʏ ᴍɪꜱꜱɪᴏɴꜱ ᴡɪᴛʜ ʏᴏᴜʀ ʙʀᴏᴛʜᴇʀꜱ ʏᴇᴛ?" Fugitoid wonders.

"One or two," Mikey shrugs. "Though Raph would rather I wait a little longer. I'm kinda glad I kept the mutations, they really help with tracking and stuff -- and the looks on the villains' faces when I start climbing the walls is priceless!" Mikey cackles.

"ᴀɴᴅ… ᴛʜᴇ ɪɴᴛʀᴜꜱɪᴠᴇ ᴛʜᴏᴜɢʜᴛꜱ?"

"Not as bad," Mikey explains. "Practically gone. Sure, Instinct pops up every once in a while. He really likes to talk during fights and junk. But Raph's been helping me out with him."

Raphael smiles proudly at the mention.

"Therapy's been good too," Mikey continues. "It helps to just... talk it out with someone."

"You've been doing therapy?" Bishop asks in pleasant surprise. "With who? A human therapist?"

"Actually, there's a Yokai clinic in the Hidden City," Mikey smiles. "Draxum recommended it to Leo, and Leo recommend it to all of us."

"Ohhhh, so is that the appointment Casey mentioned?" April asks.

"Yeah," Mikey says with a grin. "I'm really happy that Leo took the initiative to go, that was huge for him. And he's doing a lot better, too!"

Mikey continues to explain their experiences with their therapists as he works with the pizza, pulling it from the oven and sprinkling garlic and herbs into the crust before setting it back in for a few more minutes...

"Leo's therapist has been giving him tips on how to improve his mental health, gain more self-worth, and deal with his own intrusive thoughts. He said I'd like talking to them, so I went in for a sort of trial run. It was... a little awkward at first. The initial couple of sessions were just us getting to know each other and my therapist asking about my family and some hobbies, which I kinda didn't expect at first? I guess I figured that we'd jump right into the issue... But the more we talked, the closer we got and the easier it was for me to open up about my traumas and problems. So, uh, there's that!"

Mikey chuckles as he checks on the pizza again. Five more minutes, maybe... He sighs as he leaps onto the kitchen counter and perches there.

"So, I guess this is our new normal," April notes. "Everything seems to be all wrapped up for the most part."

"Except for one thing," Cassandra grumbles. "The blue turtle and his fathers aren't here yet! I want to eat the pizza already!!"

"It's not even out of the oven," Raph scolds.

"I'LL EAT IT WITH MY BARE HANDS!" Cass shouts, pumping her fists. "I'LL EAT IT STRAIGHT OUT OF THE FIRE! IT'S NO MATCH FOR ME!!"

"Uh-huh, suuuuuuure," April jokes.

"When is Leo getting back, though?" Mikey asks.

"By my calculations, he'll be here in the next three minutes," Donnie declares. "My tracker says he and Papa and Draxum just left the Yokai clinic and should be getting their contributions for dinner right about now."

"Great! They'll arrive just in time for the pizza..."

The group continue talking about whatever they can until Leonardo's portal illuminates the outer room. Warm welcomes, questions on how the session went, how Leo's doing, what Draxum has been up to, and so on until everyone decides that they are starving and sit themselves down for dinner.

The group catch Leo up to the discussion through the salad and appetizers. He huffs at the mention of Dr. Finn. Draxum catches the others up on the recent finishes to his home and how Huginn and Muninn have come back to work for him again.

Fugitoid pretends to eat the food, which causes Casey Jones to snort his soda through his nose and the entire table laughs, even John Bishop.

Mikey uses his mutated tongue to snag an hors d'oeuvre off of Leo's plate when he isn't looking. Splinter sees and snickers loudly, which alerts Leo to Mikey's second and third attempts.

The pizza comes out a few minutes later, hot and ready. The crust is a bit warped and has strange knots, the cheese is mismatched and looks odd, and the toppings are strangely arranged. It's the wackiest-looking flatbread the world has ever seen.

Yet when each guest takes a bite, they are wonderfully surprised. It is quite possibly the most delicious pizza in the world, despite its flaws and outward appearance.

"Mikey, you made this?" Leo asks with shock as he chows down on the slice.

Mikey nods as he eats his own cheesy triangle.

"Wow, dude! This tastes awesome!"

Mikey's smile stretches across his face as Leo pats him on the back.

"You did good, Mikey! You did really good."

The End.

Prev || AO3

[kaccvcate]

A great work of art should illicit an emotional response. Cannibal Holocaust (1980), one of the most infamous movies ever made, does exactly this, in spades. The creative leads were Italian, but the majority of the actors are Yanomami, the same ethnicity as most of the actors in Boorman's The Emerald Forest (1985.)

The beginning of the movie establishes that a group of young people researching cannibalism went missing after a expedition into the Amazon to contact previously isolated tribes. After a search, their bodies and footage are recovered, and this found footage makes up the majority of the film. It reveals that the young filmmakers were extremely prejudiced, and when they find the tribe they’re looking for, they terrify them with guns and violence, and burn their entire village. The jungle people rightfully murder the townies, and then just to be extra cool, they eat them, too.

Cannibalism is a controversial topic. In most human cultures, it’s extremely taboo; in some it’s abstracted and ritualized (such as in Catholicism); and to some chads still living out in the bush it’s highly sacred. I think European people are extremely oversensitive about culturally diverse funereal practices – for example, thanks to the colonial government occupying my country, I’ll be unable to keep my father’s bones after he dies, an ancient Choctaw tradition that we both would prefer to follow. To the Fore people of Papua New Guinea, the only respectful way of handling your loved one’s corpse is to eat their brains. Most cultures that practice cannibalism eat their enemies after defeating them in battle, which is similar to the culture of our cousins, the Chimpanzees. There’s also evidence of the practice by some early hominids in Europe. This leads me to think battlefield cannibalism was once universally practiced by our shared ancestors, and then dropped by certain cultures over time, so really you anti-cannibals are the freaks. Cannibalism is an especially controversial topic among some indigenous activists, because historically some North American tribes were accused of practicing it who never did, to justify European conquest (most of us always had a taboo similar to Europeans.) Personally, I think it would be better to rest in the warm belly of a friend, than to spend eternity in the cold, hard ground. Maybe if colonizers had to eat what they killed, they would kill less people. Human flesh makes good food for thought, at any rate.

Aside from the staged cannibalism, this movie contains footage of real war atrocities, and multiple real hunting scenes. They butcher and eat every animal killed on film. If the abstract thought of killing an animal to eat it is disgusting to you, I think you are probably extremely out of touch with reality. Colonial society separates people from food production so thoroughly that extremely normal things are frightening and strange to adults, as they ought only to be to young children. Even if you’re vegan, the fact of the matter is that without animal products our ancestors would not have survived, and animal products are indispensable to the future of sustainable living (if you think “vegan leather,” aka plastic, is better for the environment, you are a fucking moron, and don’t even get me started on the detrimental effects of synthetic fabrics, dyes, and scents, not to mention their byproducts.) “Wah wah, I don’t want want to look, dead animals are yucky.” Actually dead animals are beautiful and delicious, but have fun living in la-la fantasy land I guess. Non-human animals kill and eat each other all the time, even supposedly herbivorous deer and cows will eat meat when they have a chance. The idea that it's somehow immoral for humans to do so is anthropocentric elitism, which contributes to colonialism and environmental destruction. You will never survive the glorious people’s revolution.

Another reason this movie is so effective is the groundbreaking special effects, which are extremely convincing, especially given that they're placed alongside real animal violence. There's also several rape scenes - the one most commented on by mainstream reviewers is the one committed by a Yanomami man, but the European characters actually rape more women and break rules of consent in more varied contexts throughout the movie. During one of the only two times characters have sex and it isn't assault, it's filmed without the woman's consent, and the other time the Yanomami are forced to watch, so there's actually no consensual sex in the entire movie.

Most movies are about how the world is really a good place, and kindness wins out in the end. To me, the world has not always been so nice, and I’ve seen many real life examples where good people did not win, so horror movies are actually life-affirming in a very satisfying way. I’m not trying to say the tribe portrayed by the Yanomami are worse than the European characters (far from it) but what makes this a great horror movie is that there aren’t actually any “good” characters. We’re shown some pretty violent traditions the fictional tribe keeps, and I think some of the inhuman, barbaric practices of our “modern civilization” would be equally offensive to an isolated jungle nation, such as industrial pollution and prison slavery (not to mention the actions of the European characters in the movie.) Frankly, if you don’t like seeing racist white people get torn apart and eaten by some tribal-ass cannibal dudes, I think you probably just have bad taste.

[ntls-24722]

[Reply to this post] @shiro-luxunder

GREAT question.

Debu scientists who weren't loved enough by their parents or something looked at the millenia old Zebrapeople discussion of "what do we do about dubiously sapient species" and thought: "Hey, that sounds fun, why don't WE have that?" So, during the collective 80-year Golden Age of Unethical Experiments (and one of many Infamously Bad Times to be a Minority in Bolur history), Debu created the Frabu, the hybrid between the sapient Debu and the nonsapient Frazi, which is like, the Debu equivalent of a chimpanzee.

Bonus fun fact, or rather bonus fucked up fact, Frabu are a fertile hybrid, with frazi already being compatible with Debu with needing nothing more than artificial insemination! Very convenient yet deeply awful!

Now, obviously, creating a "humanzee" no matter how it goes is always a base 10 on the fucked up scale from 1-10, HOWEVER I will say how Babu turned out (out of the two) was LESS fucked up.

Babu was a male Frabu sporting a beard AND mustache, along with long (but sparser) raise-able hairs on his back. Attempts were made to have him speak, but he seemed only able to parrot words (as Frazi are capable of mimicry, though without understanding, like a parrot) (Frazi HAVE been reported using words from Debu languages as a code within their troops, fascinatingly enough). The research team gave up a bit too early with testing Babu as if he were a Debu as he appeared to show no progress at all, and began socializing him with other Frazi, but it was then where they saw his hybrid status shine.

Babu didn't make for a very good Debu but a VERY good Frazi, and it was when he was with other Frazi that Debu were actually able to get some insight into their own evolution. Babu's dextrous hands and higher intelligence allowed him to become the cultural icon of his group, with his toolmaking abilities and usage of them making him not only a useful member of the troop but a very good mate when his tool making was used to compliment his vocal range - he was making rudimentary instruments - and was kind of showing how Debu intelligence evolved through sexual selection, and that kind of evolutionary pressure wasn't thought of or known at the time.

Weirdly enough they kind of just... let him live as a Frazi. He was in a zoo and everything, and he actually had kids, and his great great grandkids are still living in the same sanctuary, which sure is... something. Imagine pointing at a chimp and being like "that one's, like, 3% more human than all these other chimps." I will say, he was reportedly very visibly frustrated at many times trying to teach his troop how to do things.

But Babu, despite his contributions to mousianthropology, was still considered a failure - They sought out to make a Frabu, the middle point between nonsapience and sapience, but just got a Pretty Cool Frazi. So, they tried again, this time strictly socializing this new one with Debu, only allowing them to see their mother.

Banee actually was able to learn and fluently speak Debu language unlike Babu - Babu could've, too, he just happened to be so much of a late bloomer that they stopped metaphorically watering him halfway through. However, Babu being able to speak didn't suddenly make her into a Debu. She was deemed "smarter" than Babu, able to finish certain puzzles and tests of higher reasoning once explained the rules, but under the stress of the hopes of being sapient and being expected to improve forever, she eventually hit a ceiling of her abilities and was catatonic about it.

Banee wasn't really socialized with anyone other than her researcher caretakers, and she was kind of perpetually in the painful kid stage of not getting why things were the way they were and never being deemed "mature enough" to either do things or be explained things, no matter how much she tried to improve. For this reason though, she did get along SPLENDIDLY with Debu calves, they were more playful than her comparatively boring researchers and she felt like she was understood by them. But as she became an inept adult by Debu standards, she became more emotionally unstable, prone to fits and even violence, and when she was no longer allowed to be around kids (who in their sane mind would let their child be around her like this) she got even worse.

The researchers noticed her growing restlessness and distress and, seeing how well she bonds and connects with her Frazi mother, tried to introduce Banee to other Frazi. However, unlike Babu, she makes for a bad Debu and an even WORSE Frazi - She had been too socialized by Debu and no matter how much stress not being able to solve tests and living a Debu life gave her, it didn't compare to the 2 weeks of trying to be socialized with Frazi, where Frazi would start trying to bite and beat the crap out of her!

Babu may have been too Frazi by Debu standards but Banee was truly exactly what they wanted - The uncomfortable middle ground between animal and higher beings, too primitive to be accepted into civilization but too sophisticated to live as an animal, and so, she lived and died outside of the embrace of either :(

[Obligatory "remember when this was a music man AU"]

SPEAKING OF MUSIC MAN,

On a much lighter note, here's the dubiously sapient spitting monkey species! They've got the weird quasi-human intelligence analysis but none of the weird unethical scientific experimentation! They're just born like that, and they're doing fine.

Short faced Zebramen! I thought it'd be funny if the "not(?) sapient" zebramen had flat faces like a human while the "sapient" ones looked more like, yknow, apes.

So, our zebramen evolved from zebraelves when they were isolated on an island, becoming the largest member of the taxonomic family via insular gigantism. They went down from the trees and started walking exclusively on 6's, and started herding other animals on their island, and the learning proper cowboy strats for herding and living off animals became the locus of their evolution, though they did also get pink stripes from sexual selection. Our short-faced guys, though, went further down the path of sexual selection, and are... kind of getting dumber.

They retained base intelligence from zebraelves, but the shortfaced zebraelves didn't really have any reason to keep all of it since they didn't embrace the cowboy life like our "long-faced" zebramen, but rather embraced the hedonism that came on from resource-filled island living. Their faces got flat to better show off the integrity of their stripes, their stripes no longer being stripes but being geometrically pleasing concentric circles. They're still capable of language, as their vocal cords and range actually are superior to those of zebramen, also for the purpose of being Sexy.

Though, intelligence wasn't completely useless! After all, we're so good at STABBING, why lose it? Shortfaced zebraelves, along with nicer stripes, have begun to fight for mates, still retaining their tool use and tool making abilities to make knives for the purpose. They're completely dissolved from the eusociality their ancestors had before, and have become a little less social than zebramen due to the competition, which manifests in them being less emotionally complex or compassionate.

I mentioned zebraelves had a really strong sense of uncanny valley because there were spitting monkey species that look exactly like them. This is the one!

Hive elves look exactly like zebraelves, except they have a higher nose bridge/snout, and smaller eyes, just barely outside the range of zebraelf genetic variance. Even worse? Individually, hive elves are pretty much animals.

A hive elf are wholly incapable of verbal language, deeply undextrous even with similar hands, and are VERY violent towards non-hive elves, or those outside of their colony. However, their dubious sapience status doesn't come from their individuals, but the colony as a whole. Verbal language is less important when you still retain some of the pheromone glands that most spitting monkeys use to, yknow, spit (spitting monkey slime-jet-things and spinnerets are derived from scent glands, like a skunk's spray), and an individual's dextrous hands can achieve much more with the help of others. They even festoon like bees, where they stand in a line as a form of measurement when building houses, not holes or tunnels in the ground - HOUSES. And yet an individual is pretty much just an animal!

Hive elves, as the name suggests, pretty much took eusociality and put it into overdrive. They're a deeply emotionally and socially complex and while they are a deeply scary, mandela-catalogue ass concept in-canon, they are very fascinating.

I've mentioned quagga-elves before, but these are the only spitting monkey outside the genus of zebraelves and zebramen. Very closely related though - if zebrapeople are genus pan (chimps and bonobos) quaggaelves are like a gorilla rather than being, like, another species of chimp.

I feel like these guys are the most "sapient" of these dubious sapients on account of their only setback being that they don't have a complex language but they're getting surprisingly far with making simple noises cued by gestures. With those bigass peepers no wonder these guys are more visual.

Speaking of being visual, they make art! They make art, just like other sophonts, and are the best out of all 3 dubious sapients of making tools, which might've been a result o not having spinnerets (which is interesting bc zebrapeople's evolution towards tool use was aided by their spinnerets) - the genus that zebrapeople are have uniquely refined the little jets for shooting slime into silk by reducing its water content. Quaggaelves retain the "basal" condition of being a "spitting" monkey that shoots slime from there, not a "silking" monkey like whatever those knuckleheads are doing.

They haven't become eusocial either, but they're still a very communal and social species, more like zebramen than the zebraelves.