#lila rants

[aramielles]

j’ai mis le secrets d’histoire sur sévigné je vais juger en liveblog

[scholila]

just finished final #4 today!! i think i aced it!! time to study for final #5!

[mothstiel]

do you ever see a picture of you that someone else took and think what was i THINKING she’s not hot….

[the-krakens-bitch]

“You hate bracelets” blah blah blah I’m gonna stop you right there, cause are we gonna forget about season 2. About how Diego made a bracelet in the very first episode and didn’t even give it to her, but Lila took and decided to wear to highlight her beginning attachment to Diego. And then even season 3 when Diego shows it to her again and Lila wears it to show their love. Like huh, what are we doing, did all of them(the writers) forgot the original material and that being the previous seasons.

[hufflepuffthatwantsanap]

Part of why I'm so upset with the ending of season 4 is that it punished the 8 of them for simply existing. They never asked to exist, to be born. They were thrown into existence and punished their whole lives despite being innocent children. Who then grew into dysfunctional adults because of their upbringing. It's Reginald Dick-wad Hargreeves and his Wife's fault. SHE made the marigold, HE released it knowing what would happen and the consequences of this, HE adopted the 7 of them and raised them horribly for his own gain. Yet THEY are punished for things out of their control. They had terrible childhoods and struggled through the whole series to become better and create something for themselves. Stopping multiple apocalypse's so their loved ones could have good lives. They ALL suffered in so many different ways from things out of their control and were actively caused by Reginald. They shouldn't have been erased from existence because they were born. Reginald and his wife should be punished for creating the situation in the first place. It was his fault and he should have taken the fall. NOT THEM.

[purrple-bat]

I do enjoy the idea of the Lamb being blind. They were most likely used and abused before their execution. I wouldn't be surprised of a Lamb being captured and barely kept alive to produce the now rare wool until the proper cultists could get their hands on them. Many things that make them would be cut off, so that they are only dependent on their captors; like their visions. Can't really escape if you can't see where to go. Probably a lot of trauma with it, like definitely now doesn't like shearing and when have to, does it alone. Tho more parallels with TOWW, if the Lamb was imprisoned and chained for most of their life. (I do remember this AU art I remember seeing a while back where the Lamb used to be locked up similarly and had a black cat that used to visit them regularly) I could see the Lamb being even more motivated to fight for TOWW after learning that they are chained the same way, Narinder still being in cuffs just like the Lamb was.

But now at the service of their god, they could probably see in some way thanks to the crown. My personal idea for one would be to feel and see the blood and souls. That, outside of it, it is complete darkness for them outside of their other senses. (Heck, would lead to a lot more blood rituals and also gives a pretext to the use of red(blood) markings on the faces of their cultists, so that the Lamb can 'see' them.)

The main idea I'm thinking about is the Lamb asking The One Who Waits to be able to feel their face and 'see' how their God looks. I always enjoy the idea that some knowledge of TOWW survived for worshipers and maybe Sheepkind, but it is better for the Lamb to truely see that their God is real.

Let's not talk how Narinder probably having been held that way since their siblings and wouldn't be touch starved. Or maybe he thought that the moment the Lamb would touch him, they would decay like everything does, and so that would teach them a lesson after he revives them, only to be surprised by the fact that they can touch him. Or let's not talk about the Lamb calling him prettier and taller (and softer) than they could had imagined. And we certainly don't talk how genuine compliments and reactions (like, 'wait, you have 3 eyes?! That's so Cool!!!') makes Narinder feel.

[midnightlamia]

just finished the umbrella academy. rant & spoilers incoming:

let me get this shit straight: the hargreeves siblings didn’t ask for their powers or to be born. said birth and powers were forced on them when reginald hargreeves couldn’t just shut up and die with the rest of his planet/wife. then he flies down to earth, adopts them all, and some 30 years later, we find them running around, constantly trying to save the world from an apocalypse, only to eventually find out that the apocalypses are happening not because this random fucking alien unleashed sparkle dust on the galaxy and abused children that weren’t his in the name of his wife….but because the hargreeves were just born.

that’s it. the reason the cleanse happened is a) their punishment for being born and b) abigail felt bad for an experiment gone wrong and decided to make it the entire timeline’s problem. and the only way to stop it isn’t to figure out a way to stop reginald from unleashing the marigold/coming down to earth & allow all of the og 43 children to be born naturally, when they’re supposed to be, but to….erase the children that never asked to be born from existence while leaving a million loose ends, unanswered questions, and shitty character choices that don’t get developed or explained in any way.

this season was just…….it was definitely a season of a show, i’ll give it that. the pacing was all over the place, so much so to the point where, if anything, we needed four MORE episodes, not four less. i have so SO SOOO many questions. where tf is sloane? what about the other 35 kids with marigold in them? why didn’t we see five create the commission? does durango give superpowers the same way marigold does? why couldn’t ben just drink the marigold himself if he wanted his powers back??? WHY THE FUCK WOULDNT YOU JUST GO AFTER THE MAN WHO UNLEASHED THE OG MARIGOLD INSTEAD OF THE INNOCENT HUMANS WHO GOT STUCK WITH IT WHO THE FUCK CAME UP WITH THAT?? YOU COULDVE DONE A WHOLE THING WHERE THE COMMISSION WAS ORIGINALLY DEDICATED TO FIXING REGINALD’S AFFECT ON THE TIMELINE OR LITERALLY ANYTHING—

literally just kill this last season with fire. burn it at the stake. i’m so pissed and so done. i’ve been watching this show since i was in fucking eighth grade, and i was so excited. i thought they were gonna do a whole thing where it could’ve been like “ben was always meant to die and now the universe is out of whack” or just SOMETHING other than what we got. steve blackman, i genuinely hope you have the worst fucking time for the rest of your life, you raggedy, smelly, conniving, ass-backwards bitch.

thank you and good night.

[lilacspider]

TUA should’ve ended after season 2

i am just so kriffing disappointed in this final season. i am disgusted. steve blackman has absolutely zero regard for these characters, their development, and the story. he has no respect for the ACTORS. he threw the entirety of these past three seasons in the trash in just one season. they had so much opportunity and yet he chose to make it a fetish-filled, scandalous, and completely lazy season.

all the vomitting???????? klaus being force fed marigold (which dare i say might’ve made a good storyline for him IF HE WASNT PIMPED OUT AND THEJN NESRLY BURIED ALIVE????) which in turn made him into an alcoholic???

five and lila????? they scrapped fives motivation of saving his family and keeping them together because of his LOVE FOR THEM, all SO HE COULD HAVE A RELATIONSHIP WITH LILA????? that is probably the biggest mischaracterization altogether. lila would never cheat on diego. they are married. THEY HAVE CHILDREN TOGETHER. it’s NORMAL to have arguments and trouble in a relationship but by no means does it mean there’s room for affairs as a result. it just makes me mad. ritu has known aidan since he was 15, like this is so nasty.

diego being the stereotypical “bad father” for lack of better words because he apparently has no consideration for his family which is NOT TRUE AND IS A HUGE MISCHARACTERIZATION!!????

luther going back to being the guy that no one really listens to because they feel he has nothing of value to offer (it wasn’t super evident but i noticed it which made me sad bc we made so much progress with his character!)???

allison becoming a single mom whose husband, RAYMOND, walked out on her??? that literally makes no sense for raymond or her, yes allison is a strong and independent character but it feels like it’s just stereotype after stereotype.

viktor becoming a womanizer and LEAVING HIS FAMILY BEHIND! all viktor has ever wanted since childhood is to be apart of his family, and they take that away this season??? makes no sense.

dont even get me started on sparrow ben. i have never liked his character he is wayyyy too much of an asshole, but your saying he can’t have common sense??? they turn him into a criminal who is contaminated by this essence that is meant to end the world and ends up making him insanely attracted to the one consistent mystery in this entire show (jennifer/the jennifer incident) and then throw away the entire plot line to just have them end the world. **and then making him and jennifer overly sexually attracted to each other was just straight up weird, where did that even come from?? i had to skip those scenes because it was so kriffing cringe.

because out of no where, abigail had a change of heart. and reginald is somehow one of the only mentally stable characters this season which is new!??? jean and gene were completely and utterly useless. they had no point, the only five i liked in this season is brisket, newspaper, drunk, and season one five. CIA five can leave.

one of the only redeemable moments of this season is the flashback of our brellies. that was good. there were other parts that i liked but that is first that comes to mind. **and the birthday party scene where they reunite. very cute and family vibes. sucks they couldn’t all be together because viktor was straight up kidnapped by some crazy.

and then the subway to different timelines. that could’ve been such a freaking awesome idea and would’ve made a great plot device IF THERE WASN’T ONLY SIX EPISODES AND SOMEONE ELSE WAS PUT IN CHARGE OF WRITING. like why are five and lila the only ones who are aware of this?? this couldn’t have been utilized earlier?? also can we talk more about how ben is an asshole, people focus too much on the attractive aspect of his character (which no offense, i see no appeal to bc the personality is just awful—NO HATE TO JUSTIN H M, he’s fantastic it’s just we did not lose brelly ben for this), like he force fed/tricked EVERYONE into consuming the janky marigold. except klaus because he’s the only smart one there. also good on him for trying maintain sobriety. but still. that is so messed up???? if he had never given anyone the marigold, everything could’ve been fine. they could’ve lived long happy lives in this timeline reggie made.

and then they had david cross, pitch perfect 2 ref, iconic man, play an irrelevant character. i’m so mad. wasted potential right there.

AND! it’s a crime that there is no family dance montage/scene like past seasons. it hurts. **oh and also there being like zero MCR songs is such a slap in the face because if the producers and directors actually listened to the fans opinions and ideas every once in a while, they would know that we’ve been hoping for an MCR song to be included as an homage/reference to Gerard Way.

and then that ending. where they just accept death???? choosing that the world is better off without them??? that is such a lazy end. if they had ten episodes and let gerard way have some sort of say in the writing/directing process, we could’ve had something so good. something so creative and fun and fulfilling. but no. they die and come back as marigolds. **which i personally really liked, out of everything this season i’m not sure why so many people hate the fact they kind of turned into flowers 😭😭 the ending sucked cause it’s so obvious it wasn’t given much thought but it was still sad and seeing the eight marigolds was sweet and gave closure in a sense. as much as it could i guess. **also, the farthest marigold is ben regardless bc brelly ben is dead and sparrow ben doesn’t really consider the brellies as his family. it is not five or klaus or whoever, it is ben. it has to be imo. the two flowers closest together are lila and diego. fight me.**

another thing, all the bad guys having a happy ending? irks me. like they were iconic, but why them and not the brellies? **(while i still agree with the idea of why couldn’t the brellies be happy too, i actually liked the fact that the main villains or side characters had completely different lives had the umbrella academy never existed. like that’s actually crazy sad and really interesting. also two things: is detective patch in that last scene? i’m not sure if she is. and second: why is grace like alive? like she would still be alive, but she was alive in the sixties, so wouldn’t she be like super old by that point in time?? why is she still young? and having kids? the inconsistency is realll)** also i liked the version of i think we’re alone now they used but i think it could’ve been better if they used the tiffany version again 😞

anyway—thank you for reading my rant because i am just so baffled by how horrible this season was. i feel so bad for the cast because even they knew that this season would not be it. that not one true fan of TUA would like it. and it’s sad because this has been such a huge part of their lives and careers as actors. so they did great with what they were given and for that they have my respect.

** signify edits i made — mostly grammatical and clairty edits, and a few of my opinions updated or added on to now that i have had time to really think about what occurred this season.

[no1-evermore-stan]

season 4 rewrite when? why did five kiss lila, why did five ultimately decide that the family was the problem. if this was normal season 4, five would be repluksed at the idea of kissing her , and he would find almost every other way to save the family because of his love to them…

[spatial-jump]

Spoilers for all episodes of the Umbrella Academy Season 4 and profanity below.

What the actual fuck was that finale?? Was I watching the same thing directors looked at and went, “Yeah, this is cool!”

Those last two episodes were a total shit show. An absolutely horrendous finale to a wonderful TV show.

The first thing I am so fucking pissed about is how they’ve written Five in this season. They ruined him. They tore apart the aloof apocalypse-obsessed arsehole who loves his family, destroyed it, spat on it, and then danced on the grave before crushing it under an anvil.

In no fucking timeline whatsoever would Five and Lila be a thing. I understand where some people would come from to defend it — that yes, they were both isolated for seven years and could only find company in each other, distorting their relationship as they sought comfort which mistakenly and incorrectly transpired into ‘love’. No, it’s messed up. It’s so fucking messed up and creates unnecessary drama that the writers probably wanted since they were undeniably lacking in the finale. When I first saw the camera angles and shots they were getting prior to Year Five in the subway, I was naïvely thinking, “Surely not. Please don’t tell me this is where I think it’s going.” And lo and behold, I was right. And I’ve never hated to be right so much in my entire life.

Lila (WHO HAS THREE ADORABLE CHILDREN WITH DIEGO, BY THE WAY) has known Five for absolutely ages — since he was in the body of a thirteen-year-old child. Mentally, he’s however many decades older. Regarding the actors, Aidan and Ritu, themselves, there is a fifteen-year gap between them. But my point is, Five is not a home-wrecker. Five is the type of character who would not deliberately fuck around with his brother’s wife because he absolutely adores his family. It’s not in the nature that has been presented to us, and goes completely against his values — and for what? To serve exclusively as a shitty love triangle so that Diego and Five would fight in the finale and break up the family even more at the most crucial point for them?

Five is your textbook example of a pragmatist. He knows how to prioritise, and would certainly not decide that the time to fight Diego was when two of their siblings were badly injured and another had merged to bring about the Cleanse — a.k.a. end of the world, again.

I am so, so disappointed with this, especially as Five is the character I’ve had the strongest attachment to, ever. I think I’ve managed to disconnect S4 him from the first three (that fucking greasy rat’s nest hair of his has finally been given a beneficial purpose), but I’m still sick to my stomach.

Anyway, next thing: the episodes. I know we were told in advance about how there were only going to be six episodes, and we knew they had a lot to fit in to make it work.

It didn’t. It was executed very poorly. I understand some fans didn’t like the unnecessary subplots and fillers from the previous seasons, but S4 was a bit too rushed? I mean, they found and drank the marigold within the first episode. And floundered around at the end, not even bothering to stop the Cleanse until it had been aired on TV. I get they might’ve wanted to make the show more fast-paced, but it could’ve been handled differently. They didn’t have to do a ‘Stranger ThingsTM’ and make four goddamn films for a Part One. They just needed to properly iron out everything, and that didn’t happen, which is a massive shame.

The finale itself (not the erasing their identities, but from the moment Ben is shot) deserves some YouTuber to pick it apart with a four hour video until it’s dust. It was badly structured. Normally, you see a rather pleasant — not exactly linear, but in the concept we’re progressing positively — pattern as the episodes and plots build up to the finale. We see the family find out about an apocalypse, they fight and break off individually, then they slowly pair up, eventually coming together to save the world. This was not like that.

Instead, you had one sibling fucking around in a subway with his physically much older and mentally much younger sister-in-law, another that was hopelessly obsessed with a girl he just met (but no hate for him — no one exactly told him that being closer to Jennifer was just harming them both and the world), one germaphobe who, despite not taking drugs or drinking, is off looting money wherever he can find it and deciding that was the moment to pay off his debts??, three others doing fuck knows, and then the last one who actually gives a shit, teamed up with his hideous father, and tried to prevent him from killing Ben as long as possible because he knows what it’s like to end the world, and is therefore the only one who did anything useful. God, that was a long sentence, so I’m sorry for those of you who struggle with it.

The finale was not your Umbrella Academy finale. Once everyone had (I say this in the lightest way) been ‘brought together’, they had no bloody idea what to do. In the meantime, they’d disbanded about three times within the thirty minutes of screening because of petty fights and the drama I’ve already discussed. Five leaving them at the most essential moment (due to Lila and Diego, blah, blah, blah) was an error in his character. This old man has survived through apocalypses, the one who tries to round everyone up despite everything he has seen. Even with his doubts in the S3 finale, he was still there — and his doubts were shared enough that they created a majority. In this S4 finale, there was no majority. It was just Five, and Five alone. There were gaping holes and shredded pieces of the beautifully developed characters the show had done so well in portraying. They did this with Allison during that scene in S3, where they took her villain arc too far. There are so many flaws in this, and there is definitely many people out there who can communicate it better and more concisely, but here is my two pennies anyway.

I have a lot more thoughts, but I’m currently bone-tired. I might post another rant if I remember anything else — but don’t be too surprised if it’s Five x Lila related.

I am thankful and appreciative that the Umbrella Academy was one of the lucky shows that saw its way to the very end, but I think all of us are entitled to a little disappointment at its quality and execution as it was brought to a close.

[evedenic]

doing a rewatch and five’s crash out in episode 6 is actually very iconic. his apocalypse girlfriend/situationship/affair dumped him in the middle of a giant monster fight and he decided it’s time to let the world end and die?? he’s so me

[aramielles]

ma bisexualité be like j’ai deux styles d’hommes ultra précis mais argh women ,,,,,

[scholila]

um so… my history final is a trifold. guess who hasn’t started it. and it’s due tomorrow.

[mothstiel]

should i change my url to guitargf

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

I feel like this is a horrible thing to say, but when I'm shown examples of when Marinette is having a hard time, it's hard for me to feel bad for her.

It's not like I think she deserves it and I certainly don't draw any joy from it, but I just don't feel any sympathy for when she's struggling.

My theory is that the show has toted her so much as the all-important one-and-only, all while ignoring everyone else's important moments and struggles, that I'm struggling to feel sympathetic for when Marinette is going through some sort of misfortune. Every single one of her struggles are always highlighted in such a way that it's supposed to be this incredibly-important thing that makes Marinette look so sad, but then she's comforted and validated until eventually, this struggle eventually gets resolved and she's all happy again.

But then there's Adrien. No closure about his mom, his dad, Natalie—nothing. He's slapped with all the responsibility of comforting and validating Marinette, who eventually gets her personal conflicts resolved without lasting impact.

I'm not saying Marinette hasn't done anything to comfort and validate Adrien, but his conflicts just feel largely brushed aside and/or downplayed in comparison to Marinette's, which are highlighted and emphasized as significant events.

I don't know if this makes me a bad person or something, and I do kind of feel bad about it, but I just struggle to sympathize with her when the show tries to make us feel bad for her.

Marinette is a fictional character. It's totally fine if the bad writing has completely turned you off to her and drained you of sympathy because the entire purpose of her existence is to entertain people. She's not some meaningful representation that you should want to connect with and understand to improve your world view or something like that. She's just a poorly written teenager in a bad kids show. As long as you're able to acknowledge that fact and own that this is mainly a writing issue - and it sounds like you are - I wouldn't stress about it. The writers have done a lot to make her unlikable! I totally get why someone would not want to watch a show starring her canon self. I struggle at times and I genuinely like Marinette! Her writing is one of the many reasons I just don't know if I'm going to watch season six.

I don't defend Marinette because she's done nothing wrong. I defend her because her faults are so clearly just bad writing and not some grand plan for the character where she's going to learn something, which makes me feel protective of her because I genuinely love the base character concept and what she could have been. It's annoying to see people treating her like she's the problem and not the writing because she's literally not allowed to learn lessons and change, so of course she keeps coming across worse and worse! Her flaws are genuinely fine for a serialized story, they just have no place in an episodic one where the characters stay largely stagnant.

For example, nothing about the season five conflict and final naturally follows the BS season four conflict where she supposedly learned to trust Chat Noir. As much as I don't agree that with that synopsis of what the conflict was, it is how Ladybug sums it up in the final:

Ladybug: Why don't you just give up on me? I've lost ALL the Miraculous! I'm the worst Guardian EVER! I wanted to control everything, I didn't listen to you, I lied to you, I kept you at a distance! Every time you offered me a helping hand, I never took it! I really made a mess of EVERYTHING! Cat Noir: We're gonna get them back one by one…until the very last. And we'll make sure this never happens again.

And yet none of this seems to impact season five. Chat Noir and Ladybug maintain all their secrets and they do absolutely nothing to track down the missing miraculous because the plot won't let them even though it really doesn't fit Marinette's character. She certainly hasn't given up controlling things because, once again, the show literally will not let her do that. The rare episodes where it happens always see her punished like when Alya handing out miraculous lead to SentiNino which almost lead Gabriel to knowing Ladybug's secret identity. Adrien suffers for similar reasons. So does Alya and so many other characters! I totally get why someone would not be able to look past canon's writing since it's not like the flaws are minor. I have the same problem with both Lila and Nathalie.

I just cannot stand Nathalie even though I know that she's as much of a victim as Marinette and all the other characters. None of Nathalie's flaws are her fault because she doesn't exist. It's just that Nathalie's bad writing hits me in a way that makes me despise her while Marinette's hits in a "protect and defend" way. There's no wider logic here. It's just a matter of what characters I connected with enough to look past the bad writing. The type of fanfics I read probably also helped...

My only real piece of advice on this topic is to watch your mental health and take a Miraculous break or even leave the fandom all together if you notice that your Marinette hate (or hate of anything in canon) is really messing with you. I've mentioned before that I'm debating about watching season six and a big reason why is that I don't know if it's going to be good for my mental health. Lila's writing has consistently got on my nerves, but she was a minor enough character that I was still having a good time. Given that Lila is our new big bad with the added bonus of how shitty season five was and the show may have hit a point where it's just not fun for me anymore.

Previously, I had issues with the overall writing, but genuinely enjoyed watching the show as the writers are pretty good at short form story telling, so canon was a nice mix of genuinely enjoyable moments and writing issues that were fun to talk about. That was not true for season five and I just can't picture how it will be true for season six. The only reason I'm even considering it is because I watch the show with my SO and he has a lot of fun listening to me rant about bad media, so I may still have a good time with season six. It would not be the first time that I suffered through a piece of bad media for the sake of a loved one who really wanted someone to rant about it with.

I'm not the kind of person who will tell people they're not welcome in a fandom unless they like X. That sort of gate keeping is ugly and often straight up bullying, so don't read this as me saying that you have to like Marinette to enjoy the show or that you need to disengage if you don't like X% of canon. As long as you're having fun and not forcing your dislike on others by sending clearly unwelcome asks or engaging with sugar posts in an antagonistic way or anything like that, then I'm going to defend your right to be in fandom even if we personally aren't going to get along and need to stay in our separate fandom bubbles.* All I'm saying is that it's important to know when to disengage from a piece of media. To keep track of when something starts consistently bringing you more sorrow than joy. When that line is crossed? It's time to move on.

The sad fact is that, while you may utterly adore a piece of media, you have no control of what that media will do, so you need to be very careful about trusting your mental health to total strangers. It's part of why I tend to be so critical of media. Analysis and plot pitches like I do on this blog are genuinely fun for me, but they're also a much healthier way to engage with a story than just trusting it to be good and getting burned when it isn't. There's a reason I avoid theory crafting. I've gotten really into that in the past and wound up hurt because I put way too much faith in strangers who ended up sucking at their job.

*Btw, the line about separate fandom bubbles was not aimed at you. It's just a general statement about how fandom works. All are welcome, but all do not need to directly interact. Curating your fandom experience is important self care. Blocking someone isn't some sort of value judgement. It's just sometimes a thing you need to do in order to keep from seething when you accidentally see their asinine hot takes.

[hellomagicalsouls]

it's been over month since season 4 of tua and i'm honestly still baffled and i'm still disappointed i waited so long for that. i still don't have many words but i'm still grateful for all the friends and buddies i've made (love u guys✨) i'm just honestly still confused. i don't think i'll ever rewatch it and i know that sounds dramatic but i genuinely didn't enjoy most of it. apart from klaus and claire bear and they deleted all the meaningful scenes. i was too mean about the ending of season 3 when honestly it's been my biggest saviour cause i can ignore all of season 4 for my own bullshit thoughts.

i did enjoy playing a detective though and coming up with theories.

season four of tua rest in piss you won't be missed.

bye to the siblings though. sucks you don't exist anymore (or do they?)