#there's the day that never was in s2 & the apocalypse one where everyone but five died. exceptions and still. they're not all together

[freetobeafcknriot]

we don't know much about the afterlife's structure in the tua universe (like if there's one for each timeline, which i would think there is out of coherency) nor what happens to them if a timeline gets erased. but my personal hc is that afterlife and living world are on different planes of reality—connected for the transit of souls yet distant enough for an afterworld not to collapse but rather recalibrate and keep on existing—and this plus the fact that brellie!ben has been gone since season two leads me to believe that his soul will probably wait for his siblings to join him in heaven in vain forever.

let that sink in :)

[goddesspharo]

if i may: ✦ and ♡ [any fic you’d like]?

✦ what was your easiest fic to write & your hardest?

I'm going to go with the ao3 era because I'm definitely not looking through LJ. Although I will say I was certainly more prolific re: volume in those halcyon days, particularly for Gossip Girl and House (of all things!...as if I was not obsessed with that show for at least the first two seasons) - God, that perfect storm of excellence that the S2 finale with House getting shot leading to Cuddy and Wilson putting House in a Ketamine coma without his consent and then S3 beginning with him running??? CHEF'S KISS. Even though that show went batshit crazy later on, the mileage from some of those storylines was highway level. This show was at its best when everyone around House was doing ethically dubious things in an attempt to get him to stop doing ethically questionable things. 

But to answer the actual question: I almost never think any fic is easy while I'm writing it and questioning my decision to write anything at all, but some involve less hair pulling than others. There was a period after The Batman where I got into a nice little groove (after not writing any fic for a good five years, apparently) of feeling like the floodgates opened and I wanted to write tomes, which probably has more to do with loving Matt Reeves' distinctive Selina voice. (The effortless baby to this hot mess of a socially awkward dude she met four seconds ago works only because Zoe Kravitz has confidence for miles.) I think living in a rhythm where the minute's working overtime was relatively easy to write (and shorter after the two previous 10k+ fics I'd written) - it felt easy, breezy while I was writing it and I had a good time. 

I'm always inclined to say that the hardest fic is whatever I'm currently working on because it's not over, but in this case, I'm going with against the grain of dystopic claims. As a person who almost never posts WIPs, I'm not sure why I decided a Top Gun Maverick apocalypse AU was the perfect time to start, but I probably would've relegated it to languishing half-finished in my google docs if I hadn't posted it as a WIP so maybe past me knew the only way to get it done was to have external accountability? It was hard to write because I vaguely knew where I was going with it when I started writing it and then had to actually follow through with PLOT that made sense and couldn't go back and change things that I had previously set up. It did force me to make an outline for the current WIP just to avoid that JJ Abrams life, you know?

♡ pick a fic and I’ll pick a comment that made me really happy

Any time a person comments on fic, it makes me happy. There's nothing like that rush when you get one of those [AO3] comment e-mails because it makes you feel like you're not screaming into the void! Of course I agree with the adage that you should write for yourself, but you're also to an extent writing for others (or else you'd never post it, right?) so it's nice when you hear something back. Then it becomes a game of catch instead of throwing a baseball into a tornado and hoping that it'll return someday. I love when people leave lengthy comments with pull quotes and how things made them feel or why certain bits worked for them, but it's also really nice when you get a comment years later with people telling you they still love something you wrote. (Those comments where people are talking about re-reading your stuff? LOVELY.) All of this is a long-winded way to say that if you've ever commented on anything I've written, know that it has probably made me really happy even if it was a sentence. 

[ask me about fic!]

[paperpocalypse]

the first.

50 Cliché Tropes and Prompts: 7. “Good morning, beautiful/handsome”

Pairing: Five Hargreeves x Reader

Word Count: 1,035 words

Warning: Swearing

[A/N: AU where the original timeline is restored after S2 and the siblings get back home :)]

He feels strange when he wakes up.

Five opens his eyes just a crack, then squeezes them shut immediately after, breathing in as he buries his face halfway into his pillow. God. He feels really strange.

The blankets are heavy and warm over his body. An ache – a half-pleasant ache, the kind that brings relief through every muscle once you stretch – lays gently along his shoulders as he rolls onto his back, reaching up to rub his eyes. Then he opens them again, more fully this time.

The curtains are drawn, and the sun paws at them with soft fingers. A gentle, yellow glow from the gap in between them falls across his eyes, and as he blinks, adjusting to the light, Five feels you shift next to him.

He looks over at you. You gaze back at him through sleepy, half-open eyes, and even though the bottom half of your face is obscured by the blankets, he knows that you’re smiling.

“Good morning, handsome.” Your voice is raspy and muffled. “Why’re you up so early?”

Five hooks his fingers over the top of the comforter, pulling it down so he can see the rest of your face. Your nose wrinkles at the cool air, and the ghost of a smile flits across his lips. “You realize that the sun’s up, right?” he murmurs.

You shift again to lay on your stomach, hugging your pillow. “That doesn’t mean anything to me anymore,” you say.

He raises his eyebrows as you yawn. “And why’s that?”

“Because the world isn’t ending,” you drawl, stretching out a hand underneath the covers to find his, “and we have curtains.”

Your tone is matter of fact. Five lets out an amused huff as you close your eyes, absently stroking the back of his hand with your thumb. Every once in a while since April 1st, you remind him that the apocalypse is no longer coming, sometimes in passing like this, other times more directly. And although he has never admitted it to you, he’s been needing those reminders – stopping the apocalypse had been his priority for decades, and now that it’s finally gone, he has to force himself to think about a future that lasts more than ten days.

A future that, thankfully, includes you.

“Did you sleep well?”

He hums, gazing at your peaceful expression. “Yeah,” he replies, and he’s being honest.

“Seems like you did.” You let go of his hand to brush his hair out of his eyes. A small grin graces your face. “You’re usually grouching around the room before your coffee.”

“Believe me, I’ll need it eventually.”

“You’ve been drinking less of it, though. That’s good.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t think I’ll fully kick it,” Five mutters. He reaches for your hand again, not completely unaware of his action. “It was one of the only things keeping me sane during the whole saving-the-world shitshow.”

Your grin grows slightly cheeky. “Oh?” you muse. “And what were the other things?”

“I can see your head swelling already.”

“Indulge me.”

He gives you a flat look, then rolls his eyes, letting you kiss his knuckles. “Fine,” Five concedes, his voice softer. “You also kept me sane, some of the time.”

“Aw, Five, I’m touched.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

You press your lips to his hand again, and Five instinctively pushes down the strange, pleasant feeling that it sends through his chest. But then you hold them there, and you just look at him, and he swallows down the thought that he should pull away because he doesn’t want to. Because it feels nice. Maybe he should start getting used to having nice things, like Klaus and Allison had said.

… Jesus, he’s taking his siblings’ advice now. Something’s wrong with him.

When you withdraw, the distant ringing of a bell filters through the door. Five frowns.

You sit up reluctantly as he turns away from you to check the alarm clock. 9:34. Huh. Everyone must have slept in. It’s understandable; the previous night had been quite eventful, after all, with Claire’s birthday party at the mansion.

“I guess we didn’t sleep through breakfast,” you remark, stretching as he pushes the blankets off the two of you. “I wonder what Grace whipped up.”

Five swings his legs across and over the side of the bed. “Well, it’s Saturday, so she probably made pancakes.”

“Really? I was thinking waffles.”

The ringing gets louder. Klaus is heading up the stairs, Five thinks while the two of you pull the covers over the pillows. About thirty seconds from now he will open the door, swinging the bell around and telling Five and you to wake up. As per usual. Five finds himself looking forward to it, in the exasperated, fond kind of way reserved for his brother. It’s like old times.

(Better, actually.)

“Five? [Y/n]!” Klaus’s singsong voice cuts through the sound of the bell. The door creaks open and he pops his head in, pausing his clanging around for just a moment. “Wakey, wakey, lovebir – oh, you beat me to it. Less work for me.”

“We’ll be down soon,” you tell Klaus, smoothing out the comforter on your side.

“Oh, excellent. We greatly look forward to your presence at the table.” The man provides a sagely nod, then points the bell at Five. “You, not so much.”

Five sends a sharp, narrow smile his way. Klaus merely returns it with a mock grimace, unruffled, then resumes his ringing as he disappears from the doorway.

As his brother makes his way back down the hall, Five turns back around to meet your eyes; eventually, you break out into a chuckle as he deadpans. You move towards the curtains nearest to you and pull them open, letting the light in before joining him.

“Well,” you say, “we can’t leave them waiting, can we?”

“They’re used to it,” he responds.

Unhurried, Five walks with you over to the door, ushering you through before leaving the room himself. He leaves the door open.

Morning has broken, and his siblings and niece are downstairs. You are right beside him, alive and well, no longer touched by the ashes of the apocalypse.

Everything is just as it should be.

[venfx]

magnus fic roundup

as tma comes to a close, i thought i'd post some of my favorite fics to come out of this fandom. most of these are classics, listed in no particular order.

A Weather In The Flesh by @cuttoothed​ | 3K | S1-S4 | Jon/Martin | Complete

"There is a span of years where Jon doesn’t touch anyone other than the occasional hand shake. It’s not so bad. He’s never been someone who’s needed physical affection."

Jon has never been any good at making people want to stick around.

↳ this is such a well-done exploration of jon’s character and his relationship with touch, and i’ve re-read it at least five times. sweet and sad and phenomenally well-written.

in the chillest land and on the strangest sea by imperfectcircle, singlecrow | 20K | Safehouse, S1-S4 | Jon & Daisy, Jon/Martin | Complete

Jon remembers a statement he read years ago given by a Jesuit priest, who said that the shortest prayer he knew was, just, fuck it, as in fuck it; it's in God's hands. He takes Daisy's hand and trails on after her.

or; hope is a thing with feathers.

↳ hey, you wanna fuckin..... feel things? read this.

The Magnus Institute vs the 21st Century: a series of emails and IMs by shinyopals | 26K | Series | S3 | Pre-Jon/Martin | Complete

The Magnus Institute hires a Data Protection Officer. He sets about diligently booking in meetings, writing policy documents, and training all the staff in the importance of confidentiality. Now if only he could get hold of the Head Archivist, who seems to have vanished again...

(Jon is only trying to save the world, but apparently some people think he should still be doing his day job.)

↳ i’d be surprised to find people who haven’t read this series, but it’s the definition of “the magnus archives is a workplace comedy”. also, alasdair stuart has actually read some clips of this on Twitch, so that’s a fun bonus.

Bell, Book, and Candle by yellow_caballero | 102K | Series | S3 into S4 | Jon/Martin | Complete 

In accordance with the Ride or Die Pact of 2009, Jonathan Sims can call upon Georgie Barker at any time for aid with no strings attached. Despite their rocky history, their childhood friendship, and Jon’s barely recovered alcoholism, this pact is sacred and must be upheld.

Georgie Barker may regret this. She may regret it when she discovers that the world is full of monsters and eldritch gods and dickhead managers. She may regret it when a punk rocker who should be dead collapses on their doorstep, a teenager again who needs their help. She may regret it when her stupid ex-boyfriend starts selling his soul for knowledge and the ability to keep his new family safe.

But she probably won’t. Georgie isn’t scared of anything - not a Clown’s apocalypse, not the apocalypse that Jon is destined to begin, and not Jon’s own loss of humanity.

Maybe she should be.

↳ if you’re looking for an everyone-lives-no-one-dies-happy-ending fic that also happens to be massively chaotic, look no further. 

The Reverb in These Holy Halls by @wolftraps​ | 98K | AU, S1-S4 | Jon/Martin | Complete

Undoing the apocalypse would have been enough for Jon, if all his people survived. Without them, Jon's only recourse is making it so it never happened in the first place. He's going to do better this time.

↳ quintessential time travel AUs. plot-wise, i feel like these can be difficult to write, but op does a fantastic job of tying things together in a way that makes sense. plus, it’s just fun to read.

jon sims v the nhs by @thoughtsbubble​ | 12K | Series | S3 | Complete

Joan Bright has a new patient. He's carrying an old tape recorder and is covered head to toe in scars. Jonathan Sims looks dangerous, but Dr Bright has dealt with all sorts of atypical individuals. She has no reason to be nervous.

Right?

↳ if you’ve ever thought “hey, jon should probably go to therapy”, then 1) you’re absolutely right and 2) this is... probably what would’ve happened. prior knowledge of The Bright Sessions is not required. also, apparently, this fic is written by the showrunner of The Underwood Collection? wild.

Family, Found by Dribbledscribbles | 9K | S4 | Complete

It’s Basira who catches onto it.

The collective shift that seems to come over them when heading in or out of the Institute. Not just the oppressive sensation of being observed, their every move catalogued for the voyeuristic cravings of some unseen Eye(s). That feeling remained with them even when they left the Institute these days, but it was always stronger inside its walls. That wasn’t the change. Nor was it the point.

The point was: making life worse for Jonathan Sims.

↳ i think being part of the avengers fandom circa 2012 has given me permanent found-family-trope brainrot, but you know what. jonathan sims can have a little happiness, as a treat. 

Road to Damascus by @titanfalling​ | 107K | Series | S4 | Jon & Tim | Complete

n. an important moment of insight, typically one that leads to a dramatic transformation of attitude or belief

Or, in which Tim becomes an avatar for the end of all things.

↳ tim dies and then he doesn’t. there is catharsis and world building. just....read it.

Come, Change Your Ring With Me by @backofthebookshelf​ | 29K | S3 | Peter/Jon, Jon/Martin, Peter/Elias | Complete

The Lukases demand the Archivist marry into the family, and the Institute relies on them too much to say no. Peter is smug. Elias is fuming. Martin is suffering. Jon thinks this might be tolerable if only Peter would hurry up and leave him alone already.

OR, the soap opera we call an Archives revolves around Peter Lukas this time.

↳ superb evil-bastards-in-love content, feat. martin pining, tim being obnoxious, and jon being... well, tired, mostly. i will literally never get tired of how op writes peter. 

creatures that i briefly move along by @dotsayers​ | 16K | Series | AU, Post-S4 | background Jon/Martin 

Mr Sims was so weird, was the thing. Miss Grant always said calling people weird was rude, and Anna sort of agreed, but she didn’t know what other word to use to describe Mr Sims.

He’d only been in with the class for a few days, really, and half of that he just sat at the back listening, but that didn’t stop her from making a swift judgement. 5BG had had student teachers before, back when they were 3ST, and they’d been uniformly normal.

Mr Sims was… actually, Anna had a better adjective. He was interesting.

↳ i just.... love teacher!jon fics. this series delivers. 

Once Bitten by @apatheticbutterflies | 1K | S4 | Jon & Daisy | Complete

Jon Sims has always been a jumpy kind of guy. Nervous. Twitchy. Daisy used to think it meant he was guilty. Turns out he was. Just not of what she’d thought.

Daisy learns how to peel an orange.

↳ daisy and jon’s relationship is an example of an instance where i’m happy to say “fuck what you wrote mr. jonny ‘chocolate torte of tragedy’ sims, i want them to be friends”.

pins and needles by mutterandmumble | 13K | S1-S4 | Complete

He’s got a reputation to uphold anyways; an uptight, rigid reputation that dictates the way that he interacts and functions and is such an integral part of him that he can’t let go of it anytime soon. He likes his safety nets. He likes his contingencies. He likes his privacy, and everything around this place right down to the walls seems to have ears, so he’ll stay tight-lipped up to and beyond the threat of death.

He’s good at that.

In which Jon takes up embroidery and bumbles through life the best that he can.

↳ out of all the introspective jon pieces i’ve read (and there are many), this one stands out. maybe it’s the symbolism or the characterisation, or maybe it’s the fact that i have an embroidery kit lurking in the back of my closet along with a hundred other half-pursued hyperfixations. whatever. this is excellent.

sleeping in by @ivelostmyspectacles | 5K | S2 | Jon/Tim | Complete

“Who are you trying to convince?”

Jon gives up, letting his head sag against Tim’s shoulder. “I don’t know.”

aka Elias gets tired of Jon and Tim's bickering, sends them away for a "team-building" weekend trip, and is sure to book them a room with only one bed

↳ this has everything you’d need from a “oh no there’s only one bed” fic. someone please get these men therapy.

if you try, sometimes (you get what you knead) by @ajcrawly​ | 3.5K | S1-S4 | Jon/Martin, Tim/Sasha | Complete

It starts with an abundance of boeuf bourguignon and ends up as a team tradition.

Food and love in uncertain times.

↳ more found family fic, this time with a diverse og!archival staff and food as a metaphor for love. hurt in all the right ways. made me hungry in the process.

[zontiky]

au where reginald got all 42

*cracks knuckles* *my fingers shatter*

reginald voice: if i cannot bribe my way into having child soldiers i will CRIME my way into having child soldiers

reginald during that one interview in s1e1: *hides gun* the mothers have been suitably... compensated

me beating the shit out of him with my bare hands: i hate you i hate you you stinky old man im tempted to kill you off 20 years earlier in this au just because of this

anyway

reginald acquires 42 magical babies

i refuse to believe vanya is the only mega destructive little child there exists in that horde of children. i refuse it.

what im saying is that he goes through a lot of nannies

is there multiple graces? do they all look like grace or are they different so its less weird for everyone involved? does reggie even give a shit at all? i dont know lol so imagine w/e you want for the robomoms but grace is definitely a thing

bc the handler doesnt get the chance to crime on lilas parents lila is there too she can be #8 because i love her lol

wait wasnt it 43? i feel like its 43 am i tripping one sec let me consult the wiki

i think it was 43. im so tired so pardon me and my bs

ummm with the pressure of taking care of 43(42?) children and seeing their obvious unhappiness every single day grace snaps and kills reggie <3 queen shit

jk lol that would end this too fast and im not done talking

unfortunately delila is incest in this situation. sorry diego 😔

FORTUNATELY, there is 42(41?) other dysfunctional adults to help five stop the apocalypse this time. i want them to organize a commission break in. because that would be cool as hell

listen. with that amount of siblings there is no way that they dont all support each other. and if that sounds unrealistic to you consider that they all have at least 1 or 2 people that are absolutely ride or die, ultimate support systems for them. ok? ok

so basically nobody dies, nobody ends up on the streets, diego doesnt live in a boiler room like a sad gym rat (affectionate), luther is not on the moon and also not monkeyfied because out of 36 kids i sincerely doubt there isn’t at least one with healing powers, 2 if you count lila and her copycat tendencies

umm what else. allison has friends growing up and learns quicker that u cant just rumour people to get ur way and that actions have consequences so she never rumours claire and never loses custody and does she become a movie star at all? i say yes but thru talent this time and she doesnt use her rumour to nudge ppl to decisions unless those ppl major suck lmao

before anyone gets on my ass abt this pls consider: she deserves to make bigots lose important papers and hire her. ok. she can have a little rumour. as a treat. but shes responsible about it

i dont think as a 4 year old allisons power was strong enough to rumour 42 people into forgetting vanya has powers. so vanya keeps her powers and learns how to ✨control them✨

vanya is no longer a sad lonely violinist. she is a goth moderately well adjusted violinist. good for her

NO APOCALYPSE. IM SAYING IT AGAIN. THE FIRST ONE HAPPENS BUT THEN IT DOES NOT

honestly five might not even run away in the first place but i highly doubt reggie would yk. tell them. to prepare for an apocalypse. so theyd be taken unawares the first time without five there to warn them

but OOOH BC VANYA IS MODERATELY WELL ADJUSTED AND HAS AN OK SUPPORT SYSTEM SHE WOULDNT FALL FOR HAROLDS BS AND BLOW UP THE MOON IN THE FIRST PLACE... OHOHO

but also we dont know how it happened the first time so maybe its still on? idk lets say its still on. its on but only once

LDSFKASJDF EVEN IF THEY DONT PREVENT IT THE 2ND TIME THIS MAKES S2 SO MUCH FUNNIER

five having to teleport 42 other people to the 60s and then out of the 60s: ouch

AND THAT NEGATES THE SPARROW ACADEMY. COMPLETELY. THAT’S OUT THE WINDOW BC REGGIE ALREADY ADOPTED THEM ALL THE FIRST TIME LMAOOO SALKFJSH

they get back to 2019 and are like dad??? and reginald never adopted anyone he’s just living alone in his mansion and 43 random people just appear in his house JKDHFIWHFSH IM DYING OMG

ok back to the nopocalypse

lol im done talking so

grace snaps and kills reggie before all of this happens in the first place and all 43 of them have happy well-adjusted no evil parent childhoods <3 the end

[michals]

That post reminded me I never actually posted this and it's one of those ‘kind of embarrassing I spent so much time on it but I’m posting it because I spent so much damn time on it’ things.

Klaus and Luther similarities/parallels

So the show doesn’t give us a ton of Luther and Klaus interaction but I think just them being the characters they are they’re really similar and have interesting parallels.

Of all the siblings I think it’s actually Luther and Klaus who are the most diametrically opposed in terms of their place in the Academy and their childhood. Obviously there’s the dynamic between Reggie explicitly calling Luther his favorite and Klaus his biggest disappointment, both of them had high expectations thrust upon them and one excelled and the other failed. But then again Luther was set up to excel and Klaus to fail. For all that Reggie wanted from Klaus he went about it in entirely the wrong way which only hurt Klaus’s abilities, and comparatively Luther’s powers are very straight forward so his training had to be mental in that he became exactly what Reggie wanted him to be.

Basically: Reggie’s abuse had opposite effects on them. Luther was brainwashed and isolated, Klaus was discarded and left to fend for himself. Luther loves/trusts his dad, Klaus hates him. Luther thinks they have a purpose and what they did was worthwhile, Klaus thinks it was all a big joke and meant nothing beyond Reggie’s little experiment. Luther’s at one end of the spectrum, Klaus the other, and everyone else falls somewhere in between.

How they show the effects of their abuse however, is actually more in sync. Klaus has a habit of either ignoring or talking around problems, acting like they’re not problems, or being flippant about them. Klaus acknowledges Reggie’s abuse but it’s usually in a jokey, casual manner, he usually moves on from talking about it quickly without getting too deep. He knows Reggie did a number on them but confronting it head on is difficult. And this is from a character who’s been in multiple rehab centers that obviously include some kind of therapy sessions.

Luther of course outright denies it until he’s faced with it in the worst way, and even then he can’t really get his head around it. One of the first things he did when landing in the 60s was to go to Reggie and expect him to welcome him, even though he doesn’t even know him. And then for all his talk in s2 about having moved on it reads like lip service, it sounds like he knows that’s what he should say, what he should feel, but it’s not entirely working. It’s like he’s just trying to dismiss it to the point where he will literally run away from the conversation. I still think the moment of him telling Sparrowverse Reggie that he’s happy they’re all home and together is a huge sign that he still thinks of Reggie as his dad no matter what.

Klaus and Luther either don’t know how to talk about their trauma or aren’t willing to. Whether it’s that Luther still doesn’t want to face up to it completely or that perhaps he does have the littlest bit of hope that actually Reggie did care and there was/is a chance he might care yet, or with Klaus trying to put the trauma on the backburner so he doesn’t have to relive it or process it in a way that means he won’t be able to drink it away or perhaps be forced to confront the powers that have caused him so much pain.

I also think they are genuinely sensitive. Not in the same way the others are, but empathetic and gentle in ways they never got to explore as children. I think that emotional wounds go much deeper than they let on. They’re always on the cusp of reaching out but not only do they not like dealing with their problems, they were taught not to. If given the chance they’d probably be happy to play support for the others but that wasn’t Reggie’s goal. I can easily imagine Luther as the kind of leader who takes everyone’s plans and thoughts into account and makes sense of it from there, who’s better at dictating than just demanding. And I imagine Klaus would probably be capable of understanding and connecting to his ghosts in a way that helps both him and them if he had been given different training.

Next is how both of them have poor self esteem and what comes across as a passive view of self preservation. Klaus has a very conflicted view of his place within the Academy. Apparently he was regulated to being the ‘look out’ often and wasn’t as active as the others. Obviously this is because of his complicated relationship with his powers and how Reggie treated him within the group dynamic. If he didn’t think Klaus was important (because he wasn’t doing what he was supposed to) then he wasn’t important. Now, having embraced his place as the black sheep of the family, Klaus still doesn’t know where he fits in and often comes across as “useless” (in quotes cause obvs that’s not the whole story, just a simplification).

Just in general he sees himself as an outsider. For all that he’s flippant and casually cocky he’s not actually all that confident in what he’s capable of to the point of not even trying sometimes because he’s convinced he’ll fail. It’s a smokescreen. It goes hand in hand with him not confronting his feelings or trauma, easier to play like he’s confident than to deal with it.

Luther’s self esteem came entirely from his place in the Academy and his father’s opinion and what Reggie made him. Even then his confidence gets shaken all the time when someone doesn’t listen to him or when they argue with him. He too tries to cover this up, Klaus is glib Luther is bossy. Then there’s the whole gorilla body thing, which he is very obviously mortified by. (Side note: interesting contrast in Klaus being usually the least physically covered up sibling and Luther being the most.) He’s wildly ashamed and embarrassed by his appearance. (There’s a whole other point I could make about how Luther only willingly shows his body when he’s being exploited and pummeled – or high – but that’s another post.)

Then Luther’s whole foundation crumbles with the discovery of Reggie’s true nature. He doesn’t have much left after that and then he’s dropped into a foreign world with no one and no way of coping and then Reggie once again lets him down. What’s he do? Gets into a situation that mirrors his relationship with Reggie, lets himself be taken advantage of, does what he’s told to the point of physical harm - because he knows nothing else and the bet is he doesn’t think he deserves better. Then he spends all of season 2 saying that he messed up, he’s not a hero, he’s not a leader and that he has no place thinking highly of himself. Guy straight up doesn’t have any self esteem at this point.

(Klaus also doesn't see himself as a hero even though he was on a literal superhero team.)

And in terms of their sense of self preservation: Klaus obviously has very little regard for his own health and wellbeing. Even if he doesn’t throw himself in front of bullets he’s still drinking and doing drugs to an extreme degree, to the point where they’ve actually killed him. He knows it’s bad for him, he knows it’s dangerous but he doesn’t care. Even with Ben in his ear he continues. When he dies in s1 he’s relieved.

Speaking of throwing one’s self in front of a bullet: Luther does this 3 times that we see. This comes obviously from his protectiveness as a leader but there’s an undercurrent of other people surviving being more important than him getting hurt. And when Five comes to him to say the world’s ending again Luther says he doesn’t give a shit. The Luther from s1 was all about saving the day, s2 Luther is shrugging and saying ‘yeah well, so what?’ and when he does start to care it’s mostly because he’s looking out for Five.

(Sidenote: I realize that my headcanon that Luther is becoming an alcoholic and has an unhealthy relationship with drugs is probably me reading into things but were the show to go in that direction: that they both would find comfort or an escape through substances would be another thing to tie them together and explore how their traumas affected them and what they do to deal with/avoid dealing with them. They’ve become pessimistic about the prospect of answers or catharsis so they look for escape instead.)

(Also also pointing out that the two times Luther was the most candid about his trauma was when he was drunk/high and one of those times was with Klaus – who for the first time in probably a long time, or ever, got to be the shoulder someone cried on. And what a great thematic idea that it’d be the two of them that’d be the most honest and open with each other eventually.)

Bonus item: Luther and Klaus have both died outside of their apocalypse related deaths (pretty sure Allison never actually died in s1 but was close) and in ways that none of the others were there for. Neither of them have talked about it. Maybe it’s because they don’t want to seem weaker than they already are, maybe it’s more of that ‘let’s not talk about trauma, let’s just get drunk’ mentality, or maybe it’s because they don’t think anyone would care. None of the others have really talked to Luther about the accident or the aftermath, none of them have approached Klaus’s addictions as an actual problem. Whatever reason why it would probably do them a world of good to find out they have that in common in the same way it would be good for Luther and Five to talk about their isolation.

They really seem like they should be very different characters in all respects and they really are in a lot of ways but there’s also this laundry list of ways they mirror each other or are similar and I hope the show takes advantage of that.

[ichika27]

Mairimashita! Iruma-kun s2 ep9

I just wanna point out that the last scene on the OP changed. It used to be like, a red curtain background but now it’s in front of Royal One with the rest of the class.

Heyo! New episode today.

*record scratch*

*freeze frame*

This is our protagonist, Iruma. You must be wondering why he looks like he’s dying on a pile of schoolwork. Well, we have to go back a bit to see how this came to be.

(Sorry, I can’t resist making this joke when the show kinda started the episode like that.)

After Iruma’s evil cycle event, Azz and Clara decide to cling to him so they’d know if anything is wrong next time. Everyone tried prying them off to no avail.

Sabnock even offered Clara a piggyback! I’m glad that they’re acknowledging that this happens lol. It’s just a little thing on the other episodes (mostly in season 1, I believe) but at least we know Sabnock is okay with it.

Since nothing they did could make the two let go of Iruma, they decided they’d all join in instead! It’s so cute!! Kalego-sensei comes in to tell them some news though:

The Apocalypse, aka Summer Vacation is coming which is awesome and everyone is super excited!

The exams come first before that which causes the class to panic. Failure means remedial classes.

I guess it’s time for the “Demon School” part of the title to be on the spotlight. Time to study!

Iruma is one of those who are worried because he’s never had to study properly before (what with all the jobs he does and his parents being awful). He can also read the demon world’s language due to magic he was given by his grandpa but it doesn’t mean he could understand what he’s reading about.

Clara shows off her own exam results and while they are pretty bad, they at least exceeded the 10 point mark Iruma couldn’t even get to and this shocks Iruma. Clara further rubs it in his face by asking him to call her “Nee-san” or “Sensei”.

Azz-kun’s vision from before!

Asmodeus doesn’t think lowly of Iruma cause of this set back. Instead, he encourages Iruma and tells him that they could just study for it. Asmodeus offers his help in tutoring Iruma. One of the rewards of getting high grades is rank advancement and if they could do it together, all three of them could totally beat this test! (punishment of failing is demotion though which worried Iruma).

Oh and Ameri’s stalker needed to be somewhere where he could be watched over without him bothering the student council so he was dumped in Iruma’s battler. Iruma, being the nice guy that he is, couldn’t refuse and so they’re stuck with this guy.

Moving on! Ali-san is also worried. He was only able to talk and have proper consciousness when Iruma ranked up. Who knows what will happen when he gets demoted! Ali-san asks if Iruma could get high grades but Iruma answers that he could probably do enough to pass and not fail (which I can relate to cause all I could strive for in my school days were passing grades lol).

Iruma has a lot of expectations on his back right now. And so, that’s why he’s been studying his ass off.

The rest of the class is trying very hard to study as well since failure meant they’d have their summer vacation screwed up which is bad.

The main trio does their own studying too with Azz trying to gauge how much Iruma knows so they’d know where to start. The next scenes are Iruma and Clara competing in a little quiz with parodies of different popular game shows being their setting. Iruma gets no point at all while Clara gets 2.

Just when all hope seems lost.

One of the books move on their own and quizzes Iruma on it’s contents (just the first chapter apparently) and all of the questions seem to have to do with the human world or something and Iruma, being human, gets it all correctly.

Everyone praises Iruma for this accomplishment and since this is the first time he’s experiences such a thing, this gives him a little ego boost.

Asmodeus suggest that maybe they should take the Fantastical Animal studies since Iruma is good at it and that they could start focusing on that first. Iruma happily accepts.

Unfortunately, the usual teacher isn’t available and so they have this dangerous seeming guy instead. He’s also the guy who made the book that quizzed Iruma earlier.

--

This episode feels a bit more slice-of-life-ish due to how they’re focusing on studying at the moment. Indeed it’s important and Kalego-sensei points out they have to do well since they’re now using the Royal One classroom.

I was unable to take a screenshot of it but Grandpa Sullivan actually offered to help Iruma by either giving him the test answers or making the test easier (both which he could do since he’s the school principal) but before Iruma could even answer, Opera points out that helping Iruma that way wouldn’t be good for the boy in the long run. And also, Opera believes Iruma could pass it on his own which puts a little extra pressure on Iruma. I do believe that if Opera never said anything, Iruma would have declines on his own.

There’s a new addition to the Magic Tools Battler: Schnare Eligos. He doesn’t seem to have a big role at the moment though. Ameri mentions to Iruma that since the guy could make potions and such on his own that he could fit in the battler anyways. His name is added to the little list on the wall and along with him, there’s five names on there. They haven’t taken off Kiriwo-senpai’s and probably never would since Iruma believes their senpai would come back one day.

Not sure how long this little arc is gonna be but people on the comment section is already talking about a festival arc and a park arc. Hopefully the anime could cover the stuff that are exciting (we’re close to the season’s halfway point!).

Thanks for reading this far!

[nuclear-satan]

Final Space Season 3 Episode 1 Review **SPOILER WARNING!!**

...And Into The Fire we go!

I really have wanted to do a Final Space review for a while, so now - I'm going to do it, fuck it. Starting a couple episodes late, but after [insert shenanigans] I needed to let it cool off before getting back into it.

One last warning: THESE ARE NOT SPOILER FREE REVIEWS. DO NOT READ IF YOU ARE NOT SPOILED AND DO NOT WANT TO BE. THESE ARE GOING TO HAVE SOME SUMMARIZATION INVOLVED.

With the disclaimer out of the way, let's get into it.

So, first of all, I have to acknowledge that this cold open? Fucking toasty. The entire first five or six minutes of this episode is flat out amazing and some of the best that Final Space is. Really intense - I love the dramatic cold open to a space chase.

Also, however, brief, the Quinnary reunion was nice. Quinnary is a ship that I enjoy subjectively more than objectively, but considering it really hits now even if S1 had issues... I can look past it yo.

Invictus proves his power and intimidation incredibly well this episode, between the Gary Zombies and even this first incredibly terrifying matchup - even Mooncake, who in any other situation has been able to zap it away, couldn't touch it. Really setting the villain well.

Small thing I want to acknowledge because there was some discourse on it -- Sheryl saying "I'm his mother; where do you think he got it from?" Was really nice to me. Obviously not all is forgiven, nor should it be, but it's just a nice bit of character development.

Then, Ava gets Yeeted by Bolo and breaks.

I could have taken a better screencap probably, but I will not.

Anyways, considering the cast of characters was way too fucking big in S2, I'm not... particularly aggrieved by this, especially since I didn't really like AVA anyways, but it is pretty unfortunate that one of the only female characters just got the ax without basically any development other than the obligatory robot comphet stuff. Whatever, I think this is setting the stage for HUE AI, so I'll bite my tongue.

That said, the conversation that HUE and AVA had before she died? Sweet.

And then they're in Final Space. Goddamn, they really went the extra mile animating and illustrating this episode. Gotta acknowledge it.

Also, quick note: New OP is a banger.

...And this is when the review's going to start getting a bit more negative, because we jump straight into everyone's favorite trope: a time skip.

I. I really have issues with this timeskip. This episode was fucking ballistic in the pacing, and I really, really wish that I could have spent some more time within Final Space just trying to survive. I get it. It was a premiere, so you wanted to go all out, but... I really wish we could have savored it. There's just suddenly a timeskip! We don't get to see how they've been surviving. We don't get to see shit. Quinn just suddenly appears in a new outfit, and then we're off the races.

I dunno man, I really had issues with the pacing of this episode, and this is the backbone of it. It's okay to take a breather, even in your opening episode. You have to know when to take a breather. This episode sorely needed it, and it didn't get it.

Also, obligatory Danger Groins mention. Yeah, I know that's not what he says. It's what he says in my heart, tho.

From here, the Gary zombies show up, which are... admittedly intimidating.

They get attacked, and - okay, can we fucking mention the titan fights for a moment? No matter what happens this season, I'm here for this. This is Gurren Lagann levels of ridiculous, and I fucking love it. Smash that planet, yo.

lThey get separated, and Avocato and Gary have a bit unfitting but fucking hilarious moment that has to be acknowledged. This shit ain't straight, yo. There's no fucking way you tell me this shit is straight.

And... *sigh* I really have some goddamn issues with the next... I don't know, I wasn't watching, six minutes?

"There's no more grossout scenes," we were told. "Season 2 gross out is done. No more weird fetishes."

Okay.

Okay, sure.

I'm sparing you the images, because I don't want to post grossout on my blog, but... holy shit, Quatronostro's birth scene. First of all, which of the fuckers on the blog keeps putting their fetishes in this show? Clarence is gone, so you're making Mpreg Tribore (I realize Tribore is canonically genderfluid, but he's male presenting at the time of this birth... and at every time... I don't have faith in two cishet men to actually make good on that, sorry. I hope I'm wrong.) Stop it. Stop it. Stop it.

The scene is gross, uncomfortable grossout. This isn't the 90s anymore!

Also, the other thing I have to acknowledge - that motherfucking robot. It's season 3 - haven't we moved past the screaming = funny leftover humor from Olan's YouTube days? Clearly fucking not.

Also, Ash did a really out of character thing this episode by shooting the robot. I... what is Ash's character, exactly? Ash is an inconsistent enigma. Someone define that poor girl's character, already.

After that... mess.... though, we do end up with a very solid ending. Bolo headbutts the planet, Quinn and Gary get swept up in the blast, and we end up with a very beautiful but quick scene of Gary and Quinn embracing one last time - it's very reminiscent of chapter 9, and I did thoroughly enjoy it.

iAlso, the shot of Mooncake saying "Gar" while looking for Gary, presuming he's dead? Oh, that just hurts.

And then we end with HUE saying, "We are alone, Gary." Honestly, genuinely was a little disappointed to find it wasn't just HUE and Gary. I thought this line was going to come later in the season, and it was just going to be HUE and Gary in a callback from season one. It wasn't, and I'm genuinely very disappointed as someone who's favorite dynamic in the entire show is S1 HUE and Gary. Of course, as a result, I'm not unbiased, and... well, I do stan Quinn too.

And goddamn, look at the Earth. She got fucked uuuuuup. I think I remember hearing next episode that there's only one survivor left, which I do NOT buy as a concept, but it's very cool to see a show that does not shy away from full apocalypse scale destruction of the earth. It like, never happens, so it's a nice subversion. Get fucked, earth.

Overall Thoughts:

This episode is the definition of a mixed bag. The beginning is fantastic and the ending is solid (even if personally disappointing), but the middle is genuinely kind of bad. The pacing is rough, there's season 2 tier grossout that I did NOT need to see, and that robot deserved a punt in the face.

The animation is fantastic though. Everyone point and stare at the animation.

I still think the good outweighed the bad, though - if only because of my personal attachment to the characters. I think this was a decent episode - probably on par with the other openers... actually, I don't know.

My disappointment with this episode was more than with the Toro Regatta, but that was more due to my own expectations and thus not fair to rank it that way. I don't know - all the first episodes of the seasons are meh at best, and this unfortunately due to the lackluster middle fit that mold as well.

If you asked me to give it a ranking, I'd probably say if we assume a 5 out of 10 is average, I'd give it a 6. Decent, fantastic when it's good, but the entire middle section really brought me out of it and because of that I can't give it anything more than that.

I've heard episodes two and three are good, though - excited to see the Ventrexian for myself after all the fuss, so let's see how it holds up!

I'm scared for Biskit tho.

[ofstoriesandstardust]

recognize you

a/n: the gif felt appropriate. 

main masterlist | the choices we make masterlist | story description | discovery | best of me

summary: The Hargreeves siblings are not pleased to learn of Luther’s choice to reach out to his sister.

warnings: swearing, reference to s2 of TUA

word count: 1,137

Luther returned to the Academy, a dopey smile on his face. Meeting Elena had been great. She’d been so kind and they laughed and talked and he learned so much about his biological family. They probably could’ve kept talking for longer, but she’d gotten a call from one of her co-workers (he thought it was one of her co-workers) and she’d had to go. She’d promised to call him soon, when she had a break in cases, so they could arrange a time for her to come down to the Academy and meet his siblings.  He opened the front door and immediately noticed how quiet the place was. Ever since their return from the 60′s, there was always someone around, with Five, Luther, Klaus, Allison, and Ben taking up temporary (permanent?) residence with nowhere else to go. It had given the family a well needed chance to hang out with one another and bond. His mom came down the steps and moved towards her. “Hey Mom.” He called and she looked up at him. 

“Luther, sweetie, did you have a good day?” He nodded as she reached over to give him a hug and kiss his cheek. 

“Where is everyone?” He asked. 

“They’re in the kitchen I believe.” She said, and he nodded, heading towards there. He pushed the door open, and walked in. The sound cut Klaus off, clearly saying something. The tension in the room was unsettling and Luther was starting to get a bad feeling as all his siblings turned to face him, varying looks on their faces, none of them good. 

“What’s going on?” He asked. Five shoved his hands in his pockets. 

“Where were you?” Five said angrily. 

“Out.” Luther said, confused. Was he about to get interrogated just because he’d left the Academy?

“Oh yeah? With who?” Five snarked, moving from his place on the counter to Diego’s side. 

“A friend.” Luther offered, not yet willing tor reveal Elena, but he was starting to get a feeling of where this was headed. 

“Damn it, Luther. What did I tell you about looking at your file?” Five snapped. Luther just stared at Five, not sure what to say. “I thought you had a bit more of a brain than that. But no, I go to finish Dad’s study this morning and find the lid on the box off. And guess who’s file was gone?” Luther shrugged.

“So? That doesn’t mean anything.” Luther lied. Allison rolled her eyes and Diego scoffed, shaking his head. “It doesn’t.” Five threw his hands up in the air, turning away from him. 

“Really?” Diego asked incredulously. “Then why did I get a call from my police buddy today that you came looking for information on a woman named Taunya Roberts a couple days ago?” Diego threw down a packet on the table, one Luther was assuming held all the information he’d been looking at just a few days ago, and more. 

“What does it matter? It’s not like any of them live in New York.” Luther argued. Damn, could he just stop digging this hole already? Diego chuckled darkly. 

“You’d be right, until you look all the way down... here.” Diego pointed towards the bottom of the page, and Luther didn’t need to look at it to know he was pointing to Elena’s name. “And, oh, would you look at that. She lives in Manhattan. Say, Allison, you’ve been to Manhattan. How far of a drive would you say it is from here to Manhattan?” 

“Only about three hours with traffic.” She responded, looking at Diego. 

“So, let’s do the math here. Luther left at 9 am this morning, which woul-” 

“Okay, okay, I get it!” Luther snapped. “I looked at my file, I reached out to my sister. Why are you so mad about it?” 

“Do you not care about us anymore?” Luther’s head shot down to where Vanya sat. He pulled the chair out next to her, sitting down. 

“No, no, no, Vanya, that’s not it at all.” He rushed out. 

“I just mean, after everything we’ve been through, after everything you and I have been through- are we not enough for you anymore?” Vanya asked, the emotion evident in her face. 

“No!” Luther exclaimed. He looked to Allison desperately for help. “Allison, c’mon help me out here.” She looked at him and shook her head. It was a look that made his blood go cold. Luther quickly stood up, and moved towards her. “Allison-” She shook her head, moving away from her. 

“I can’t, Luther.” 

“Allison-”

“Because when I look at you, after what you’ve done, I don’t recognize you anymore. I hate that there’s a stranger standing in front of me where my brother used to stand.” Luther could feel his heart start to break at her words. All he had wanted was to meet his biological sister; he had never meant to tear his family apart. 

“What was your plan Luther? You were gonna meet her and she was gonna accept you and we were all going to live in fairytale land?” Five said, snapping at him again. 

“Can I meet her?” Klaus piped up and Luther nearly got whiplash from how quickly his neck swiveled towards Klaus, as did everyone else. “She’s very pretty. Do you think I could seduce her?” Klaus asked, turning towards Ben, who was sitting next to him. Ben chuckled. 

“Nah, she looks like someone whose got standards.” Klaus shrugged. 

“Fair.”

“What are you talking about?” Allison asked incredulously. Klaus gave an over exaggerated sigh and shifted in his chair. 

“Well, while you people have been sitting here arguing all day about this, Ben and I did the appropriate thing and internet stalked her.” Allison shook her head. 

“You know what, forget it. I can’t.” Allison pushed past Luther, and left the kitchen. Vanya wordlessly followed her. Luther turned his attention back to Five and Diego. 

“I’m done with you Luther, I can’t.” Five waved him off, leaving through the other kitchen door. Luther sighed and looked at Diego. Diego uncrossed his arms and made to stand up. 

“You know what Luther? This probably equals as bad as the time you caused Vanya to go all destructive and cause the apocalypse.”

“Diego-” Klaus protested, but Diego silenced him with a wave of his hand. 

“I thought that things were finally starting to get better. I thought that you and I- we were a team man. Team Zero, remember?”

“Diego, we still are. This doesn’t change anything.” Luther pleaded. Diego shook his head. 

“This changes everything.” Diego left the kitchen and Luther slumped down in a chair, putting his head into his hands. Ben sighed next to him.

“They’ll come around Luther. It’ll just take time.” Ben said softly. 

“So... my question still stands, can I meet her?”

[in-tua-deep]

tua s1 rewatch with my roommate

episode one (I forgot for the first episode oops):

I have been treated to pictures of a lovely cosplay of Klaus who won a cosplay contest my roommate was in !!

Klaus putting his arm in front of Five during the funeral fight is good shit

“I have heard like nothing about Vanya” “yeah that’s pretty much how she’s treated in show as well”

“I can see why he’s the fandom favorite” - about Klaus

“Istanbul is in the firST EPISODE?”

I forGOT about the “rapists can climb” line when he breaks into Vanya’s apartment omg but also like,, his dumb arm wound

Episode two:

HERR CARLSON

Aww baby fives first time travel his little smile. Baby. Baby boy. And the dawning horror in the apocalypse baby nO

Five: you got anything stronger

Also five: takes one sip and then fills up more, takes another sip, and then immediately puts it down ?????

The motel dude for hazel and cha cha just looks at them like “yeah these are serial killers” and just rolls with it

Also actually why tf doesn’t the commission spring for better stuff?? Why would they cut costs?? They time travel? They could game the stock market so hard ?????? Give the assassins their own rooms omg

Also why didn’t five like. Crush his tracker. Why did he just leave it whole and intact outside of the Griddys.

Forgot how much I love Agnes

(Oh man it is storming bad here it just BOOMED)

Also idk if Diego actually deserved that taser hmmmmm but also like,, communication lads five was literally right there killing people and Diego is like “hmm something is up here” like. Yeah Diego ur big brother “I can get my sibling in trouble for something” senses are tingling

Wow I really did repress all these Allison and Luther scenes huh. Also it’s still super cute that Allison read Claire moon books

Allison: dads heart gave out, which wasn’t how I was expecting to find out dad had a heart but it tracks

“SHUT YOUR PIEHOLE BEN... said with love 😘”

Did five actually sleep at Vanyas?? The sofa looks undisturbed but he had to wait for work hours to interrogate the meritech people,, five,, please sleep. The whole “IF YOU CALL ME YOUNG MAN ONE MORE TIME” interaction makes more sense with five on. Zero sleep.

I didn’t remember that Patch straight up knows about the umbrella academy oops. Like she clocks Diego as overcompensating for his childhood. Queen

Is that an umbrella adademy Diego cross stitch on Diego’s wall?? Did he buy that? Make it?? Did grace make it?

Vanya, walking into the academy: five??? five? pspspspspsps

Also like. Who was Vanyas therapist??? Clearly they did not help her

Aww the tow truck driver :(

I know the show wants me to dislike Patrick I KNOW,, and I think her fathers funeral is extenuating circumstance?? But still Patrick is valid for not giving an inch regarding his ex who mind controlled his child. Vanya didn’t really deserve Allison snapping at her but like. She had some good points. Allison arguably would have had to deal with vanyas book more than anyone else

Five smiling proudly at Klaus’s drama at meritech bless but also KLAUS DONT BREAK GLASS ON YOURSELF

Me, spotting Leonard: BASTARD

Love how everyone greets Diego in the gym and don’t question all his knives or anything like “yeah that’s Diego he lives here and loves knives :)”

Why could Leonard have not been like. A normal ass guy. Vanya needs friends who sympathize with her holy shit get this person some socialization

Pogo really did have to lead these kids by hand to the recording rooms because literally no one was super invested in reginalds ~murder mystery~

ahafahJAGSJWGAI MY ROOMMATE JUST SAID POGO IS THE BEST CHARACTER SO FAR,,,, I will probably never include pogo in my fics because I do Not Care About Him lmaoooo

Aww five does to see Dolores and being like “it’s been a rough couple of days :(“,,,,, baby,,,, but also tag yourself I’m hazel going “elastic wrist splint yesssssss”

Five I am begging you PLEASE get some sleep

OH FIVE SHAKING DIEGO IN THE APOCALYPSE TO TRY AND WAKE HIM UP OHHHHH OH :(

Episode 3:

my roommate is super faceblind which is an issue bc she identifies people mainly by hairstyle so seeing the s2 stuff on tumblr is tripping her over bc she keeps seeing diego and going ??? who is that again? bc she’s seen his longer hair

okay there is no way that the eggs that grace put in that pan are the ones that ended up on the smiley face breakfast plate,,, but also grace that whole scene was a mood honestly i would be like “okay maybe mom killed dad BUT he deserved it sooooo”

“what the FUCK” - my roommate about cha-cha’s shitty wound care where she holds a curling iron against her arm

i didn’t remember that five got shOT AT THE DEPARTMENT STORE did i just erase that from my memory?? i mean yeah it’s a graze but he stitches it up and then slaps a bandaid on it so he has a wound that needed stitches on his shoulder for the entire show ??????? is he okay???? that would make moving your arm,,, painful,,,,,

a bandaid just slapped over it i’m actively yelling

“Sometimes when I see a million gifs of a show before I watch I get really surprised when they talk but he is exactly what I expected” - my roommate, about five

“I noticed they’ve only really showed diego in really badly lit scenes so far” - my roommate defending her lack of ability to recognize diego

i’m still laughing about pogo literally having to point out the murder tapes and now allison and luther are investigating and just. allison is lowkey defending grace and i’m laughing

“why is he saying woodwork is embarrassing that’s like one of the most middle of the wood hobbies to have. you’re respectable to grandpas who used to carve wooden ducks AND twenty-year-olds who can’t make anything to save their lives” - my roommate on leonard peabody

“i think he’s already crossing some lines he’s met this lady ONCE” - roommate on leonard/vanya

five having flashbacks in the car :(

did allison and luther draw straws for who went to fetch which sibling?? allison was like “dibs on vanya” and luther was just like “aww :(”

five luther and klaus in the van - BOYS NIGHT BOYS NIGHT let’s go pick up diego

“the coat he’s wearing does have a nice swish to it” - roommate about klaus’s coat

luther being like “you’re just as messed up as the rest of us and we’re all you have” like luther,,, baby,,,,, you literally ARE all he has,,,,,, his family is the only thing he’s really cared about since he was thirteen and maybe before then :(

“I can’t tell if those are supposed to be cake or yeast donuts... i think extruded donuts are cake donuts but she said she lets them rise so maybe they’re yeast?” - my roommate focusing on all the things that i do not

sometimes i forget that hazel and cha-cha pretended to be private detectives trying to find a lost child in a potentially dangerous situation,,, five would be disgusted

“she shouldn’t get a vote” “i was gonna say i agree with you” “she should get a vote!!” this is peak sibling energy honestly i think i’ve had that exact interaction with my siblings voting for a movie or something

“hashtag android rights” 

“I want to be the tailor who gets a call one day that says ‘i want you to make clothes for a chimpanzee”

is it telling that only luther in the flashback didn’t really talk to grace at all,, i mean five didn’t either but i think he was gone by that point in the flashback ???? 

wait diego tells grace that she worked for him for thirty years,,, the kids are 29 and later it’s implied she was built bc vanya kept killing nannies when they were like four but maybe s2 clarifies that some more?? or diego just is rounding up

“that’s an interesting fabric to her skirt” - my roommate about grace’s outfit

forgot that hazel and cha cha broke the door to the manor busting in,, do they ever fix that?? we’re only at episode three do they spend the rest of the season with their door open to anyone on the streets

okay that bathtub is WAY too small to allow for klaus to be moving his elbows about like that underwater smh

“how is HE useful on mission??” my roommate about klaus

where is the SECURITY SYSTEM??? luther LITERALLY said that reggie was more paranoid and yet some assassin can just bust down the door and have unrestricted access????? he built a whole ROBOT but no security system????????

“maybe it was like,, practice for the kids? someone breaks in and they take care of it? wait no that doesn’t explain the thirteen years they’ve been gone?”

“why WAS he on the moon?” - about luther

“I want to see what she’s embroidering!!” about grace during the gunfight in the living room she’s absolutely ignoring diego getting shot at

what is a rope-a-dope,,,, diego yells “EVER HEARD OF A ROPE-A-DOPE???” at luther but like. no i haven’t. what does that MEAN diego

aww i forgot they played sinnerman, love that song

“what are you doing dude, rumor has it you’re not shooting at me that’s all you need to do” i mean. the roommate is not wrong. allison could just end the fight with a yell. i understand she’s pissed off and has rumor trauma but like cha cha is actively trying to murder them

how is luther not winning he literally has super strength. does hazel have super strength? just punch the man and knock him out jesus y’all suck at this smh

why is there such intense music we all been knew about luther’s strength - oH HIS BODY

forgot about that

is it allison’s fault that klaus got kidnapped because she didn’t literally just rumor them to give up?? like she literally has that power. she could have been like “i heard a rumor you left and forgot about us” it didn’t even need to be violent?? i understand she has rumor trauma but this i feel is allowable circumstances

diego showing his worry about vanya by getting angry which honestly i think all the siblings do that rip none of these idiots have even heard of healthy communication in their LIVES

you know,, i don’t think vanya can drive. she takes the bus. she took a taxi to leonard’s house. we see her walking a lot. does she know how to drive?? i imagine that the umbrella academy were taught bc of mission related stuff but,,, vanya wasn’t?? that’s just depressing tbh

[mycultisgonnabesopissed]

Thoughts on Luther Hargreeves

Imagine how Luther felt when he learned that his father was dead. Luther was stuck with a body that he was ashamed of and had almost died, because of a mission Reginald had sent him on. Luther had sacrificed 4 years of his life on the moon for Reginald; completely isolated from everyone (not that he had the privilege of getting to know a lot of people in the first place). He had no choice but to be completely dependent on Reginald, which I’m sure his father just considered an upside about the moon mission, but really sucked for Luther! 

  Maybe, somewhere in the back of Luther’s mind, he considered the possibility that he had been sent to the moon because of That Mission that went wrong, but he bore it out because he has that “I could’ve done more” mentality. He probably believed that he deserved to be there. He probably harbored the hope that he could win back Reginald’s approval, which he mistook for love. But now, Reginald is dead, and Luther is realizing that it wasn’t going to happen. Everything he’d done for his father— so, basically everything he’d done— was for nothing. 

  Luther had probably spent the first few days after Reginald’s death trying to deny this ugly truth;  instead fixating on the missing monocle and the issue about Mom. But once he discovers solid proof that his moon mission hadn’t meant anything to Reginald, he is forced to reevaluate who he is, who he was to his father, and where he stands in the grand scheme of things. And, as it turns out, his countless sacrifices for the person who he most needed affirmation from meant that he doesn’t have a place in this world. As Luther succinctly puts it: “I wasn’t a good enough Number One.” He never could be, in Reginald’s eyes. 

  So, Luther compensates by trying to be a leader and stop the apocalypse; wrongfully disregarding everyone else’s opinions in the process, which leads to him making a lot of terrible mistakes. I’d go so far as to say that he’s the “fuse” that causes Vanya, the “bomb”, to go off, along with or perhaps instead of Leonard.

  But in S2, Luther learns from his mistakes and lets others who are more capable (AKA Five) take the lead. He apologizes to Vanya. He is no longer in denial about how shitty and manipulative Reginald was. That alone shows how much he’s grown and makes him much more likable. He even smiles and laughs this season, which was a bit shocking, but hey, I’m happy for the big guy! He is by no means one of my favorite characters in the show, but, at the end of the day, his siblings are just messed up as he is, and maybe-- maybe-- he deserves to be cut some slack. 

[diegosclownshoes]

alright, continuing within the same au, here’s the relationship progression + more on what they’ve got in common aside from being sarcastic assholes

they start of as enemies (which needs no explanation) to exasperated allies facing up against a common enemy (though for the agent she isn’t going against the handler specifically, who five wouldn’t hesitate to off if the need for it came, it’s more her mission to bring on the apocalypse that the agent’s trying to stop) to begrudging mutual respect for each other (five once he sees the agent use her abilities at her own risk to help his family make it to the alley in time, and the agent realizes five isn’t just some snotty brat but a highly skilled professional with the biggest soft spot in history for his family)

if they didn’t have the 10 day deadline, they’d probably move on to growing fondness concealed by snark right now, but unfortunately the agent faces the huge feelings of betrayal that come up once the 743 mission is revealed to her by lila. finding out this guy (and his family) that she’s been dedicated to helping, even going against the women who raised her (thought she doesn’t ever see the handler as a mother figure, she’s still a mentor who taught her everything she knows, from how to kill men 3 times her size before she learned her multiplication tables, to how to tie the laces on her boots) was the one who killed her parents. cue major feelings of conflict: she still remembers them but it’s more of a distant memory + she’s done her own fair share of killing innocent people without question. she has no right to feel this angry at five when they both spent so long knowing no other way of living. but that doesn’t make it hurt any less when she thinks of the life she could have lived beyond the commission.

however this also means once the truth is revealed, that it was the handler who put out the hit, not carmichael, and they slowly reconcile, it comes with a much greater understanding of each other. the agent already knows deep down that it was never anything personal, that it couldn’t even have been considered five’s kill, and that she knows firsthand how that disconnect from a job becomes ingrained in you. and five gets how even if he was literally doing what he had to do in order to survive, to have a chance of making it back to his family, if the same thing had happened to him and his family were killed, he would want to get revenge on the person who carried it out as well.

a few months post s2 they reunite to handle the sparrow academy situation. when the hargreeves go back to 2019 reginald immediately kicks them out with a warning to stay out of his business, and they have to decide on their next course of action. they figure hey, might as well get all the help that we can get and decide ask the agent for her help. this is where her and five’s strange friendship really solidifies itself, especially bc of the unspoken understanding between them. the agent agrees to help out not only bc she genuinely wants to, but at this point the lack of a life outside of the commission is driving her insane and she welcomes any distractions to delay the inevitable. this is also a major problem for five as well; he doesn't know what to do with himself now, not just because he's now without a purpose in life, which used to be getting back to his family, but because he doesn't know how to be happy or even take in normal experiences after spending decades with nothing to be happy about.

this’s the point where they’d be able to have a deeper understanding of each other. i’ve mentioned before that even though he’s older and considers himself more mature than his siblings, five spent decades alone. he definitely had to grow up much quicker to survive, but he missed out on his entire youth, years of social experience that he never got. he didn’t really get that time to actually mature. and when someone is forced to grow up quicker, when they reach a point in life where they don’t have to be the grownup to survive, they live out those experiences of youth that they never got the chance to before, and there’s no doubt that same thing would happen to five too.

the agent also goes through a very similar experience. though she does grow up alongside lila, it was by no means a regular childhood with friends or peers either. and because of the training she had to undergo, both for fighting and better control over her abilities, and the handler consistently drilling in her head the fact that she has to be extremely careful w it, she’s become much more guarded as well. and then when she was18 and actually did get to live on her own, it was for the sake of a mission and she was sent to 1960 all alone and had adapt to the time period. so even though she did get more experience interacting w others in more normal ways, aka not trying to kill each other, it was always with the sense of ‘this is just temporary until the mission is over’ combined w the constant state of caution she lives in too.

after the apocalypse is stopped and the imminent danger’s gone, they have the chance to actually spend time in a normal setting. now there’s that weird, almost shy type of awkwardness that comes when you meet someone who you’ve only met once before, which is made even stranger considering they’d seen each other at their worst, rage-filled and sleep deprived, borderline manic and bloody and yelling, a week into knowing each other. so now this feels like a more “real” first meeting with everyone sitting down together and having a civil conversation instead of pointing guns at each other.

+ now that they’re not in a state of crisis/survival mode anymore and their arguing isn’t as aggressive and biting, they’re both actually able to appreciate each other’s sense of wit and humor and how easily they can get lost in a back-and-forth snark session. they also spend a considerable amount of time alone together doing recon around the former umbrella, now sparrow academy given how their abilities compliment each other (five can blink them in an out and the agent can give them quick bursts of extra time to scope out the scene and get their hands on any documents that they can). plus they’re the only two who don’t have any other affairs to get in order considering that neither of them have any trace of existence beyond the commission anymore, so they’re automatically put together as partners.

also, considering that at this point five’s managed to add 10 years to himself physically neither have any major qualms about the age situation anymore either. which means there are definitely some unexpected... feelings that crop up too (to no one’s surprise). and so now begins the beloved mutual pining stage with a side of classic repression where they do anything they can to tell themselves they don’t like each other that way, don’t be ridiculous. and since the agent and five are both textbook examples of emotionally stunted adults via their poor childhoods, their attempts to cover up their feelings basically amount to even more bickering and teasing than usual (”sure you don’t need a crate to stand on, agent?” “sure you don’t need me to knock out some of those baby teeth that you’ve got left, five?”), some creative nicknames (”no they’re not pet names, shut up diego”) and extra long side-eyes. aka, the growing fondness concealed by snark stage. between this and the fact that they’re now both attractive early 20 somethings who, for the first time in their lives, have the time to actually develop feelings for someone, the resulting tension is more than palpable.

meanwhile the hargreeves roll their eyes at the two arguing like they've been married for five decades and wonder when they’ll realize that the constant ranting/grumbling about each other just means they can’t get each other off their minds.

[hellstenglow]

Fiveya Meta: they need to talk

Endure me, I am on a fiveya-train and my thoughts don’t shut up.

After watching the most recent behind the scene videos of TUA season 2 we can conclude that they did make senseless choices in the plot because in some cases they had to. For example in the case of the snow storm created by Harlan in the final episode, that was added to the script because suddenly there have been a snow storm on the outside set the days before the scheduled filming and they couldn’t clean the place enough, in time for the recording. The snow was added.

I also think they could have written some of the characters better and given them real development (*cough* Luther, Ben *cough*). I wasn’t even a fan of the whole “Vanya lost her memory” thing, but I’ve read that Steve Blackman (the showrunner) doesn’t want to diverge from the original content too much (which is a bit silly to say since they did make major changes since season 1, but okay). I guess that’s why Vanya’s amnesia was still there, although they treated it differently. In the comics it was Mom-Grace who helped Vanya to find herself again and her own value, in the show it was Sissy who did it. I thought it was kind of a hint to the comics the fact Sissy resembled Show-Grace a bit (blond, kind and a mom). Did I think it was unnecessary to have a love interest for Vanya right after season 1? I did, but I justified the choice by thinking that the show wanted to give Vanya a taste of what real love (not like Leonard’s manipulative and abusive love) is supposed to be. I also thought it was a way to show how Vanya needs to stop clinging to the first person who gives her affection, attention and treats her with kindness. I hope she’d realize that and work on herself and family in season 3, first and foremost.

Even with the evident flaws I enjoyed season 2, especially because I decided to treat it as a passing by (detour/digression) chapter in a longer story. All Hargreeves siblings in the ‘60s tried hard to make a new life and ignored their actual life (Allison, Luther, Klaus) or had a convenient amnesia (Vanya) or focused on something too much to lose track of what matters (Diego). Everyone except Ben (who was not treated once again as a full character despite the apparent level up the PR promoted) and Five (who once again was running around in panic mode to stop an apocalypse). Remember Vanya saying, “New timeline, new me.” And Five replying “That’s NOT how it works.”? I may give the writers more credits than it is due, but I hope those two lines were some kind of meta messages for the more attentive viewers. Those two lines can explain perfectly season 2 to be honest.

Nobody can know how long a tv show would run, a fact that expose us to uncertainty. It’s always a gamble trusting writers and showrunners to deliver a good story, but all it’s fair game and one has only to accept it. I do not trust any of them, but I cannot help myself and still hope that they will not ruin everything. With all this said, let’s talk about something I think the show has to tackle in next seasons: Five and Vanya are two points of a theme that needs to be addressed and solved. They need to interact, talk and close their open theme together.

This is not a cohesive meta and I probably will lose myself in too many details, but I hope the message I am trying to convey will arrive. This is only my reading of the show and theories, so you can disagree. I just hope you’d find something interesting and maybe help someone to have a different perspective on what’s going on and where (I pray) the show will go. Here the points I will talk about, if you are in for a very verbose essay, please click on the “keep reading” button. Meanwhile I’ll wear my tinfoil crown and sip some margarita.

Five and Vanya are a theme

It was mean to be Ben

Why the Fiveya’s tension in S2 EP 7’s iconic scene is a symptom of something

I dare to hope in fiveya (at least until proven wrong)  

1. We have a theme: Five wants to stop the apocalypse and Vanya is the apocalypse

It’s a twisted joke of the universe that the very thing Five is obsessed about in season 1 (the apocalypse) was caused by the person he trusted the most (“I’ve decided you’re the only one I can trust” - Five in S1EP1). The red thread that linked Five and Vanya can’t be more evident, that’s one of the reasons why I started shipping them. The family’s dynamic, the siblings’ relationships and bonds are equally important, they add layers and motivations to the story, but if we strip everything else and look at the core, we all know Five and Vanya are at the centre of it.

It’s not a simple coincidence that Five said “I’m the four horsemen”. At first, it’s just a funny line, because Five is drunk and he described himself as those fearsome figures (because he is the best assassin of the whole world and time. Death incarnated in his humble opinion). You don’t take him seriously when he said that line, you don’t pay attention to it.  

However, later it gains a certain degree of truth. Subtly the show tells you that indeed Five is linked deeply to the “apocalypse” (Vanya), as much as the four horsemen (they are the prelude and the bringers of the end) are linked to the apocalypse (in the biblical sense). He lived it. He was trapped there for 45 years. He is obsessed with it. The Apocalypse is his business.

Timid little Vanya is the first person he looked for in the middle of the doomsday’s ruins and arguably his closest friend. On the first day of his return Five only have meaningful talks with Vanya. Five sought her to confide the horror of his memories and share the burden of the truth. He trusted her above everyone else. Then the universe made a laughingstock of him when it was revealed that Vanya caused the Apocalypse. Five didn’t know he was running towards her, despite wanting to go back to his family (her) all his life. 

In the first two episodes of season 1 they made clear that Vanya and Five had an intimate bond in their childhood and still cared for each other after so many years, then the show proceeded to separate them until the finale. They tried so hard to keep them far away from each other during season 1 and we all know everything would have been different if they had time to properly talk, process their situation and find a solution together. Of course, the show didn’t give them that chance, otherwise the show would have ended in episode 3 and goodbye drama!

They did not confront each other in the end of season 1, they let Allison take that role because the show built up their connection as sisters and I didn’t dislike the choice. Did it work thematically? No, Allison has no connection with the apocalypse. That’s Five’s business. He didn’t confront Vanya, he let others take the lead in the most crucial moment and with no surprise the apocalypse still happened.

The other apocalypse in season 2 was still connected to Vanya and again Five ignored the cosmic signals and focused on dead ends. Despite knowing perfectly that the butterfly effect can come from any source, he didn’t even think about Vanya’s being the cause of the apocalypse again. Five should have listened Klaus when he suggested that Vanya might have been the cause. Funny how Klaus told him in S1 that he has an addiction and Five aggressively denied it. Funny how saving his family and stopping the apocalypse are always his top priorities, but Five still deny himself (for a reason or another) the time to confront Vanya (the apocalypse).

We have a theme waiting to be resolved: Five wants to stop the apocalypse and Vanya is the cause of the apocalypse. If Five does not confront Vanya the theme will never have a closure. It’s still open right now. It is still there, waiting to be picked up again. There is no resolution.

2. Vanya and Ben’s goodbye

The scene between Vanya and Ben was one of my favourites from season 2 and after pondering for a while I concluded that it couldn’t have been anyone else but Ben the one who helped Vanya in that moment. My theory is that the show will walk backwards the breaking points of Vanya’s life: Ben’s death, Five’s leaving and Reginald’s abuse.

Vanya is not fixed. How could she when she was barely Vanya in this season? “New timeline, new me” she said, but that was just a convenient escapism mechanism. Years and years of mentally and emotionally abuse don’t disappear in one week. The Hargreeves have still a lot to process and resolve, individually and as family. That’s why I hope the show will progress the story in the right direction and actually work on them in season 3. Especially Vanya, who needs to confront her trauma. That’s why the scene with Ben in episode 9 was necessary.

From Vanya’s book:

[…] Our everyday existence was full of evidence that Dad had [...]-pped into treating us like experiments. Not as children, but like animals. And what happened to Ben was the last straw that finally shattered the illusion for the others …

Ben died long time ago and his death was the last straw that shattered the illusion (for the others) that their father cared about them (even in his own messed up way). Everything changed from that moment and each sibling drifted away from one another after that. Ben’s death was the moment Vanya and the rest of her siblings stopped being a family. The definitive step of Vanya’s alienation from her siblings.

There was no place in the group for her. With Five’s absence and Ben gone (he is a caring brother, with Klaus is like that and I can imagine him being kind to Vanya in their childhood too. Although, Ben is not Five and we have seen him being harsh to her in the flashbacks in S1EP10), Vanya was truly lost.

The tearful and important moment between Ben and Vanya was a reverse moment in my opinion. Vanya needed that from Ben, his death heavily influenced the course of her life (everyone’s life) and it was only fitting that Ben should have been the one helping her to start again. It’s symbolic in a sense, but also very factual.

“Sorry that I left without saying goodbye” – Five, S1 EP2

“At least this time I can say goodbye.” – Ben, S2 EP9

I’m using my fiveya-goggles, but we all thought that what Five said in S1EP2 (when Vanya tried to find him at Hargreeves’ mansion) wasn’t just about him leaving her apartment. It’s a very specific line that works on double levels: text and subtext. The subtext of course refers to the day he run out the house and time jumped. I highlighted these two lines from Five and Ben because I think they share the same theme: leaving her without saying goodbye.

Vanya wasn’t on mission with the team when Ben died, and I doubt she even saw his body (or whatever remains were left) when the Umbrella Academy returned. She didn’t even see his manifestation during the Icarus’ fight, too focused in her own power. The scene between them in Vanya’s mind gave both the opportunity to make amend of untold words and missed moments.

Ben is dead, he is the one he cannot return. His departure is permanent, there is nothing they can do about that. However, they can have a closure. Ben needed to be the one first patching to mend Vanya’s relationship with her family, to remind her that she does belong. This sort of second death (finally move on into the Light) has more meaning than the first one, this time Ben completed the mission. He saved someone he loved (he couldn’t stop Klaus from destroying his life with drugs and alcohol) and could trust his siblings to take care of the rest.

I still think Ben didn’t need to die-die, but in a sense it was time for him to move on into the light. He was afraid to go on, but if he could move on so his siblings. It is time for Vanya to move on her own trauma.

(Yeah, I know. I still have problem with the scene because they erased canon in a way and Ben could do a lot more as character. They erased the fact drugs stop their powers like in Klaus’ addiction and Vanya’s pills, so how Vanya was able to use them under LSD? I tried to explain that to myself by the fact “they needed to bs that canon fact in season 1 and ignored it”.

We can also argue that Ben could have prevented the apocalypse in 2019 by doing the same thing, but in their defence S1-Ben didn’t know he could possess a body. Yeah, how did he do that without Klaus’ power help? No idea, that doesn’t make sense to me either. Ahah. I just swam with the flow at that point and accepted it as it is. Call it the power of superpowered siblings’ love. I’ve seen worse plot holes in my life. I can live with this).

3. Pass me the knife, there is some tension here!

From Vanya’s book:

Though prone to arrogance and outbursts, even more than the average preteen, Five was my sole confidante in the years before he disappeared. It almost seemed fitting […] the siblings to leave us, it would be him who [I fully?] […] who fully trusted me.

I said that Vanya’s walking backwards her life’s breaking points. So, after Ben’s death, she needs to address Five’s leaving. Five was her only confidante in the years before he disappeared, as she wrote in her book. Five was very important to young Vanya (and old Vanya needs to remember that) and I bet when he left, that was a scar never healed.

Vanya missed him and hoped for his return, for a while she kept the lights on in the house every night and prepared for him his favourite sandwich. When Five did come back Vanya couldn’t process that fact properly in season 1, all she could think of was that she didn’t want to lose him again. Five on the other hand decided that he would save everyone on his own and for that choice he made a bunch of tragic rookie mistakes.

Miscommunication is their kryptonite and right now Vanya and Five aren’t able to fully communicate at the same level. Reggie did such a good work at parenting that they’re so unfit to deal with their emotions and relationships, that will always be the root of their mistakes.

Same story in season 2, meanwhile Vanya is on the verge to provoke another apocalypse (although indirectly), as usual Five was too obsessed with his own plans and was not even aware of the situation. He knows nobody is insignificant when it’s about altering the timeline, but he always ends to focus on the wrong lead. The show again did incredible summersaults to avoid the two to interact properly and when they interacted things still didn’t work for a reason or another. She didn’t remember her past, he was not entirely sincere with her. She wanted to start anew (having a family with Sissy, easy-peasy), he is trapped again in a run against time to save his family. They are still not at the same page and for the show that is convenient. They still can play with their open theme (my point number 1 in this meta).

I don’t blame Five in S1 for thinking that if the worse happens, they would need to kill her. I think he was in a very delicate state of mind in that moment, he didn’t have time to process the fact Vanya (his favourite sibling and we all know she is his favourite) caused the end of the world. It was disappointing and cynical, but time was ticking fast, and he had been in his “maniacal-panic” mode for almost eight days. I also think he wouldn’t really kill her; he was the one who convinced the others that they needed to take her with them in the time jump. They need to “fix her” (aka help her to never feel alone in the universe and prove her we do love her) or they’re going to make the same mistakes again and again.

Just to be clear I think if Five wasn’t one day from the end of the world and in a rush to stop Vanya, he would had had the same reaction as Old Man Five in S2. His 14-days younger version take it very well “Fair enough” he said and then proceeded to tell Luther how to save Vanya, no mention about killing her whatsoever. Old Man Five had time (10 days more than our current Five) and a direct clue on how to stop the apocalypse (thanks Luther). Nobody was going to kill Vanya.

“Vanya will always be the cause of the apocalypse, unless we fix her.” - Five S1EP10 

“Vanya is the bomb. She will always be the bomb.” - Diego S2EP8

Vanya is the bomb and she will always be the bomb unless she heals. A fact that can be added to my number 1 point in this meta, there is an open theme and they need to tackle it. Five and Vanya need to confront each other and resolve it.

This takes me to S2 EP7: the iconic stare-power stand between Five and Vanya. THE TENSION was real, and you could cut it with a butter knife. The first time I screamed at my screen, I felt like Gordon Ramsay in one of those episodes of “Kitchen Nightmare US” when someone finally serves him good food.

Of course, the immediate reading of the scene is that Five needed Vanya to come along and Vanya didn’t want to go because at that point these Hargreeves are still strangers to her (amnesia is so convenient), Sissy and Harlan are the ones she knows and loves in that right moment.

They were still able to cut each other with sharp words and hostile glares though. Five let her have what she wanted, not because he feared her, but because as usual he cares more about her feelings than what he would ever admit. It’s the second time in S2 he let her go, his soft spot and favouritism for Vanya was showing once again! *fakes surprise*

I think the tension shown in this scene is a symptom that Vanya and Five are on the verge of something they will (they have to) confront soon or later. This is the subtext reading I came out with.

Even if you don’t look at it with shipper goggle, you feel there is something going on. They let the viewers feel there is a sensitive something whenever these two have an alone scene together. All their alone scenes have a specific grade of intimacy, they made it clear since the scene in front of Five’s portrait. They care for each other, they love each other (sibling love, platonic love, we-could-have-been-something love etc…) and it’s there. However, Five left and Vanya never truly recovered from that. They didn’t process that fact and I truly believe they can’t move on until they heal that scar.

Basically, S2 EP7 Fiveya’s scene = We have to talk, but this is not the moment because the show is only on its second season! THIS TENSION IS HERE FOR A REASON.

4. Hope is the last thing to die

I shouldn’t trust a show, I’ve been disappointed so many times in the past years and showrunners of popular shows tend to be unoriginal and cowards. However, I am an optimist at heart and until season 3 I dare to hope anyway. If proven wrong, there are always fanfictions who can do better job than canon.

If all was lost they could have eliminated Alluther too from the universe because of certain fans screaming “harcest is incest you weirdos”, but Allison and Luther’s situation still exist and still work on the parameter “will they or not”? I imagine for their shippers it was annoying to have such a regression in season 2, but they didn’t destroy it and they still gave them scenes.

Fiveya had even a more subtle situation than Alluther but they’ve been granted the same level of intimate interaction whenever they have an alone scene together. Until Five (the character) will gain an older body (which he can) the whole thing is suspended. However, I think they wouldn’t have been open about the possibility of Five changing back to an older body and spoke about in season 1 if they didn’t have an idea for that.

I brushed off the line Five said to Old Man Five about being forever trapped in his 13-years-old body. It’s canon that there is a way to gain an adult body for Five, the Commission has the technology and even if it’s not the Commission they can mambo-jambo the thing in a way or another. That would never work. The actor is a growing up teenager and from season 1 to season 2 he has already changed. I imagined he will change even more before season 3 will ever start recording (maybe very late due the COVID-19 situation).

Aidan is a fan favourite and I am one of those who can’t see anyone else playing Five, with this said there are still ways for the show to give us fiveya. Young fiveya flashbacks will be always an option to explore the idea of “they had a crush on each other when they were young” and make other viewers understand that it wasn’t all “sibling” love between them. Endgame in a distant season can always have an epilogue with an adult Five (another actor I mean) having a very non-platonic (let adult Fivey kiss please) moment with Vanya, meanwhile building up the longest slow-burn (kinda, deep down I believe those feelings for each other are there) of the century.

Maybe I am wrong, maybe my tinfoil crow is too tight, and my brain doesn’t breathe. Maybe the show will succumb to easy paths and angry bullies. I don’t know, but until proven wrong I dare to hope.

PS: This is a monster of a meta and it probably doesn’t make sense? I hope someone will get what I’ve tried to say. I hope you survive, brave readers. Here a glass of margarita for you. I’d love to hear what you think

[moonbeamnights]

Ok, so this is now one of my new favorite concepts. An Umbrella Academy Librarians AU. It would be so perfect, like:

Five is the Librarian. You just know he would be

How old is Five in this? An actual 13 year old? His old man self? A normal adult? Somehow the same age/appearance combo from canon for reasons that may or may not be explained? All possibilities are wonderfully chaotic and I'm here for any of them (also, young!Five and old!Five have their own canonical styles, but adult!Five would totally dress like Flynn Carsen. That's not even for the sake of the AU, that's just the Vibes I get from Five)

Luther is the recently hired Guardian who takes his job very seriously. He's kind of amazed that Five is still alive, especially considering he didn't have a Guardian for a while

Grace is Jenkins. Yeah, sorry, I forgot his title. Caretaker I think??

Grace is still essentially Five's adoptive mom. In a version where he's a kid or isn't a kid but was when he started being the Librarian, she would have more or less raised him and if he's old but looks like a kid, she'll still have parental instincts towards him

The Majestic 12 are the Librarians S1 villains, ie bad people from Grace's past (Reggie's her ex-husband) who want to take over the Library for nefarious reasons

Ben is one of the potential Librarians who gets murdered by the 12. Luckily for him, his friend Klaus can see ghosts so Ben can tell Klaus what happened and Klaus can take him to the Library and help him explain the situation to everyone there and that's how they figure out what the 12 are planning

After they defeat the 12, Ben wants to keep being a Librarian, so Five is like "yeah, fine, I guess you can stay" also he's gotten attached to Klaus and Ben

Klaus was also one of the potential Librarians. But he never opened his job offer letter because he didn't realize what it was and he doesn't find out by being attacked by the 12 because he's already at the Library when they come for him. So at first he thinks he's just there as a conduit for Ben and no one questions that because he claims not to have gotten a letter and acts like a complete moron 24/7

But then on one of their cases, Klaus saves the day with his street smarts/creativity/con-artist skills/historical knowledge learned from ghosts and everyone realizes that he's a Librarian in his own right

Dolores is Stumpy and she can survive or not as the angst levels dictate

Idk where Allison and Diego come from. Maybe they were friends with Luther or one of the Librarians pre-Library or maybe they meet Team Library on a case. Either way, they just basically go "we've got superpowers and combat skills and protective feelings for at least one of the Librarians, so if there can be more than one Librarian, why can't there be more than one Guardian?" And then they join Luther in being the Guardian

Five's time traveling gets them into (and out of, let's give him some credit here) a loop like in the Librarians video game episode. Yes, hello trauma, Five just can't escape you, can he?

The Hargreeves' lives in the 60s are the alternate reality they get offered and almost stay in a la the Librarians S2 finale

Between Dave, Patch, Ray, and Jill, one of them is Estrella

The Commission is DOSA because of course they are

Lila is either also in the running for being Estrella or she's the equivalent of Eve's military mentor who tried to recruit Eve to DOSA or she's Lamia aka the villain who is only the villain because of Circumstances and would have been part of Team Library in an alternate reality

Hazel is Darrington Dare - a past Librarian who Five used to idolize who he gets to meet because of time travel reasons. But he's a stickler for the rules and he's not happy that there's multiple Librarians and multiple Guardians

Five does eventually manage to say "you know what, fuck that, I make the rules now", but not before nearly being convinced that Hazel might have been right, starting a rivalry between Luther and Diego over who would get to be the one Guardian, and possibly running away for a while to let Ben or Klaus be the one Librarian/out of guilt for being the one to screw things up

Vanya is Nicole - Five's previous Guardian who got yeeted through a portal (one of Five's, for extra angst value) and presumed dead

She thinks she's been abandoned and is really angry about it and out for revenge (the apocalypse)

When Five realizes Vanya's still alive, he uses time travel to save her before she decides to start the apocalypse and she comes back to be a Guardian again

Look, I know having 4 Guardians for 3 Librarians, one of whom is already dead anyway, is a bit overkill. But these dudes are using all their brain cells on Librarian things, they don't have any left over for things like common sense or self preservation

Also Five's time travel works better than the time travel in the Librarians canon so he's able to save Vanya without undoing any important events in anyone else's lives

[kitten-anarchy]

nothing but the truth (1/2)

His body is burning hot, shaking in the way it would in the early days. He doesn’t know where he is, everything blurring together as black spots dance in his vision. The tight feeling in his chest is a leaky and dripping thing, filling up his lungs and crawling up his throat, and Five just wants it out.

Distantly, he can hear a lock click.

“Five? Five!” Two strong hands wrap around his shoulders, a blurred face breaking through his haze of panic. Five blinks and the image focuses - it’s Diego, hauling him up by his shoulders. “What’s wrong?”

He bursts.

(Following their collective un-adoption, Five gets injected with a truth serum, has a bit of a breakdown, and finally gets a hug. Post S2 - S.A. exists.)

Part 2 (Coming Soon)

AO3 Link (Coming Soon)

They all practically collapse into a motel, bruised and bloody but alive. They no longer have a home, their lives are in shambles, but at the very least, he and his siblings aren’t dead. Five has learned to take what he can get. Allison rumors them two connecting rooms with ease, and they all file in.

Five plops himself down on a ratty wooden armchair tucker in the far corner. It’s got a good view of the rest of the room, and it’s close to a window. His side twinges at the thought of having to sleep upright on the uncomfortable and splintered insult to furniture, but it’s a small price to pay for safety.

“Is everyone okay?” Luther asks, collapsing onto one of the queen-sized beds. With the way it groans, Five is surprised it hasn’t collapsed under his weight already. Diego falls into the other one next to him, gripping his gut. “Diego?”

“I’m fine. It’s just the fucking stab wound Dad gave me acting up.” Diego mutters, face pinched.

“Join the club,” Five mutters. Amidst the chaos that was fighting the Sparrow Academy completely unprepared, the man had managed to stab him with a needle. Five had managed to shake it off before all of it was emptied into his body, but the fact that he doesn’t know what it’s going to do to him is… unsettling.

It’ll be fine. Five can handle whatever side-effects it throws at him by himself.

“You join the club,” Diego snaps back, bringing him back to the present. “Dad stabbed me first!” He pauses, brows furrowing. “Wait, when did you get stabbed by Dad?”

“Does it matter? It’s Dad.” Diego stares at him, pushing himself up on an elbow.

“Five—“

“Do we even still call ‘Dad’ now? I mean, he pretty much un-adopted us.” Klaus wonders out loud, stretching out next to Diego with his legs crossed. “Don’t even get me started on Emo-Ben.”

“‘Emo-Ben’?” Allison quirks an eyebrow, placing a first aid kit on the coffee table in the middle of the room. She tosses Diego a bottle of aspirin. Five makes a mental note to sneak some pills from it later.

“Yeah, ‘cause of his awful bangs. Where’d you get that?”

“Asked the motel owner while I was getting this room. It’s not great, I know”

“Should I get some food?” Vanya asks, wiping the sweat from her pale face. Fighting against the Sparrow Academy’s attempts to capture them had taken a lot out of her.

“No offense, Van, but you look like you’re gonna pass out,” Klaus says. “So does Five, honestly.” Five jerks slightly at the mention, instinctively gripping the briefcase tighter.

He doesn’t want to deal with their worry right now. (‘Where was it when the world was about to be destroyed?’ A quiet, bitter part of him hisses.)

“Actually,” Allison says, glancing between him and Vanya with her stupid mothering eyes. “I think I saw a small shop downstairs. Does anyone want anything?”

“I want chips! And a bottle of nail polish, thank you.”

“I can come help, if you want,” Five can practically see Luther’s tail wagging as he sits up to look at Allison hopefully. He’d laugh if his chest didn’t hurt so much.

“Some notebooks and pens would be nice,” Five mutters, absentmindedly rubbing at his neck. The injection point is starting to itch, and he digs his grimy nails in further, practically clawing at it in a vain attempt to get the sensation to stop. There’s a tight knot in his chest like he’s gotten heartburn, and he can’t seem to breathe. “I’m taking a shower.” He says, abruptly standing up and brushing past his siblings towards the dingy motel bathroom.

As soon as the lock clicks, Five throws up.

--

Five practically tears the shower curtains off of the rod when Klaus busts down the bathroom door, clothes in hand. “Oh, Five-y!” He chirps, setting them down on the cracked toilet seat. “I come bearing gifts!” They must have gone out for new clothes - Klaus has shed his 60s get up for a loose black skirt and some band t-shirt.

“The door was locked,” He hisses. “Do you even know what the word ‘knock’ means?”

Klaus laughs, turning to look at him. “Of course I do, Fi—ive, Christ on a cracker!” His mouth drops open. It’s the bruises, Five realizes belatedly and clutches the curtain tighter to his chest. “What happened?”

He bats away the hand that’s reaching to grab the shower curtain. “Unlike the rest of you, I haven’t exactly had the luxury of sitting around and playing house.” Between two apocalypses, there wasn’t any time to worry about old wounds and a couple of bruises. Besides, Five’s gotten used to the dull aches of pain. “It’s fine. It doesn’t matter anymore. Get out.”

Klaus stares at him. “Uh, I think it matters a lot? You look like someone used you as a punching bag. You need help, Five.”

You need help, Five.

Now they want to help? Not when the entire world is on the line?

His thin, fraying line of patience snaps.

“Get out, Klaus!” He snaps, throwing a bar of soap at the younger man. Klaus flees at that moment, leaving the bar of soap to hit the door and fall onto the dirty floor.

Great.

Five turns off the shower.

The clothes Klaus brought are clearly for adults much bigger than this stupid body’s skinny frame - the shirt comes down to his knees, and the leggings are baggy around his legs, only held up by the elastic waistband. He looks even stupider pulling the academy shorts over them, the only piece of his uniform that doesn’t smell or feel like something died in them.

It’s comfortable.

Fuck.

Klaus immediately zeroes in on him as soon as he leaves the bathroom, pushing a plastic cup of cheap microwave noodles into his hands. The synthetic chicken smell makes his stomach flip. “Five! I think we should probably talk about what happened.” He claps, looking at Five expectantly. This, unfortunately, attracts the attention of the rest of his brain-dead siblings who can’t seem to get the memo that he wants to be left alone. Five can practically feel the weight of their concerned gazes on him.

“You look like shit, Five.” Diego comments between bites. “What’d you want to talk about anyway, Klaus?”

“It’s about-”

“-nothing.” Five cuts in with a sharp glare. “It’s about nothing. Klaus just needs to mind his own damn business.”

“Five,” Vanya says reproachfully.

“I’m not apologizing,” He says shortly, ignoring the feeling of bile burning the back of his throat. Five doesn’t bother jumping to the armchair - he’s too tired, having burnt up all his energy to stop the apocalypse two times over, and now he has to burn whatever scraps he can find to figure out a way to get them out of this mess. He places the cup noodles onto the floor, grabs the cheap notebook and pen lying on the chair, and tries to start on his equations.

The keyword being tries.

“Aren’t you going to eat, Five?” Luther asks.

“Not hungry.” He bites out. Allison raises an eyebrow.

“Have you been eating?” She asks, pointing a fork at him. “I think all I’ve seen you drink is coffee.”

“He had a pot of coffee when we went to a diner back in Dallas.” Vanya offers up. He shoots her a glare. She doesn’t flinch, staring back cooly.

Huh. Look who grew a backbone. Five would be proud of her if her newfound confidence wasn’t getting in his way.

“I ate other things too.” His headache is getting worse. Maybe he’ll just take some aspirin now.

“Just eat your food, bro.”

“And I said I wasn’t hungry,” Five snaps, slamming the notebook down onto his lap. “I’m fifty-eight fucking years old, Diego. If I wanted a bunch of children half my age to baby me, I would have gone to a fucking daycare.”

Before anyone can say anything - though he can see Diego gearing up for a fight - Five grabs his things and jumps. He ignores the way he stumbles, the way his throat burns, or the way the itching spreads. He doesn’t have time for this. Right now, he needs to work.

There’s probably a closet or something around here that he can work in.

---

It was hot in the apocalypse.

In the first few days, when the bodies were still fresh and unburied and there was smoke and fire everywhere, the temperature never dropped. Even at night, the sweltering heat never eased up, keeping him in a choke hold. It was even hotter where the bodies of his siblings were. Dolores had told him not to sleep at their half-built graves.

It’s too warm, Five. You’ll burn up. She had been kind and gentle about it. It was more than he deserved. You can come back, but you can’t stay.

Five stopped listening to her and continued building.

He got heatstroke two days later.

In his dehydrated, fevered state, he clung to the sun-warmed bodies of his siblings, convinced that they were still alive. His heat-induced hallucinations would talk to him, begging him to help them. If it hadn’t been for a weak thunderstorm passing overhead, Five would have died there with his siblings, lying in a half-dried puddle of his own sick and piss.

He’s reminded of those times now.

His body is burning hot, shaking in the way it would in the early days. He doesn’t know where he is, everything blurring together as black spots dance in his vision. The tight feeling in his chest is a leaky and dripping thing, filling up his lungs and crawling up his throat, and Five just wants it out.

Distantly, he can hear a lock click.

“Five? Five!” Two strong hands wrap around his shoulders, a blurred face breaking through his haze of panic. Five blinks and the image focuses - it’s Diego, hauling him up by his shoulders. “What’s wrong?”

He bursts.

“Everything’s wrong, I don’t know, I never know, it just hurts so much,” The words leave his mouth unbidden, every secret he has ready to spill out into the open at a moment’s notice. “It always hurts, but I guess watching your family die, it’s- it’s always painful, and you look so much nicer alive-”

“Five? Klaus, w-why is he acting like this?”

“Klaus is there too? I never gave him his twenty bucks. I never came back for you either, I’m sorry, I wasn’t going to leave you, I swear, I love you all so much, I-” The world moves, colors blurring together. Next thing Five knows, he is being laid out on something soft.

When it refocuses, Five is staring at the worried faces of his siblings. “I don’t know why you care so much,” His mouth is still moving, and if he were a bit more coherent, he would have been mortified at what was coming out. “I left and even though I tried to get back, I never got back in time, I never get back in time, something always happens-”

“Did he finally lose it?”

“Maybe I did.” Don’t say it. “I spent so long in the apocalypse, I’m-” Don’t say it. “-sure I went insane, I, I thought-” DON’T. SAY. IT. “-about killing myself sometimes, but I didn’t try, I didn’t, I swear, Dolores would-” Something jams itself between his teeth. The taste of wet metal and vomit fills his mouth, and Five only realizes that it’s his forearm when the sharp sting of pain sets in.

His neck itches.

“Hey,” Klaus laughs, voice pitching high with hysteria. “What the fuck?” All of his siblings are staring at him, a little shell-shocked at the sudden confession.

“Ish the needul,” He blurts out, desperate to take the attention off that confession, half-muffled by his forearm. “Dad, he got’h me wiff ah needul.” The heat has died down some, after blurting out so much, but it’s still there.

“I’m sorry, Dad got you with a what?” Much to his chagrin, Diego pries his bloody arm from his teeth. Vanya passes him a roll of bandages. “Why the hell didn’t you say anything? Why can’t you let us help you instead of going off on your own all the time, Five!?”

“Because-” it was only a little, I could handle it, I’m not a kid “-I don’t want you to die again. I don’t want to see you die again. I’m always the last one left, and I’m going to be the last one left because I’m stuck in this stupid thirteen-year-old body, it’s why I hate it so much, though the patronization obviously doesn’t help much since I’m supposed to be 58, but all my wrinkles and white hair and sunspots are gone, and if they’re gone, was I ever really in the apocalypse at all? If a tree falls in the forest with no one around, does it still happen? Sometimes I wish-”

Fuck it. Five might as well put it all out on the table. He’s in no shape to teleport out, and his mouth isn’t going to be stopping anytime soon.

“I wish the bullet holes stayed when I rewound time, because these bruises hurt and maybe I’m the problem, and you were all so happy in the 1960s-”

A soft, calloused hand covers his mouth. “This is an invasion of privacy,” Vanya says quietly. Five can’t see their faces - doesn’t want to see their faces - but the silence says everything.

“H-He said he was hurt,” Diego says, bandages still in hand. “We need to... can you take off his shirt? He’s probably got something hidden under there.”

“Five, do you want me to move my hand?”

“Why are you being so nice to me?” He blurts out the minute Vanya moves her hand slightly to start taking off his shirt and check his injuries. “I don’t understand, I’ve done so many bad things, I ran away and left you to get beaten by Dad, I stranded us in the 1960s, I’ve killed so many people, I killed the board of directors, and it didn’t even get us home in the end because I was so fucking stupid to think the Handler wouldn’t go back on her deal, she always does! I know this-” His shirt is tugged over his head, effectively muting him.

Five resists the urge to cover himself as his bare chest is exposed. The audible gasps of his siblings don’t help whatsoever.

“Five,” Diego takes mercy on him, opening up the first aid kit Allison handed him. “There’s a lot to unpack here, and I know I’m still not entirely sure what’s going on with you, but here’s what’s going to happen.”

“I-”

“Vanya,” Her hand clamps down on his mouth. “We’re not going to force you to say anything else. This is- This isn’t something- what you’ve said. I’m sure there are things you really didn’t want to tell us. That doesn’t mean there aren’t things we won’t address, but not when you’re like this.” Diego’s fingers run through his hair soothingly.

“But why?” Five nearly sobs around Vanya’s palm, and maybe he is sobbing at this point. Everything feels far away and painful at this point, but he fights through it to focus on Diego.

“Because we love you, dumbass,” Diego lightly raps his knuckles on Five’s sweaty forehead. “You’re still apart of this family. Sure you’ve missed out on some stuff, but so have we. It’s a two-way street.”

“We’re here for you,” Vanya hums, Allison sitting down next to her with a smile on her face and a glass of water in hand.

“Yup. Time to shut the fuck up, Five-y.” Klaus grins at him. Luther, who had been standing a little ways away, comes over to wipe at his sweat and tears with a napkin.

“Is it okay if I give you a hug?” He sounds a little teary himself. Five doesn’t trust his mouth not to run away from him, and he nods. At this point, he’s too emotionally and physically exhausted to keep up any pretenses.

Everyone crowds on the shitty motel bed that’s way too small to support the weight of six people to join in on the hug, but Five finds that he can’t seem to care.

He clings to the first hug he’s gotten in forty-five years and doesn’t let go.

[madhyanas]

I pronounce it as Yin hhahahah but also um 👉🏼👈🏼 are u going to share your poly fic with the class

i feel inordinately validated w getting an anon ask (also sorry this took so long wow i’m a hoe)

alright see anon i have a love for poly reader fics there’s a whole oberyn x reader x ellaria thing i want to talk about too asjdhgfsjhdgf 

@pettyprocrastination and @concussed-to-pieces really beat the shit out of me with their writing. in a really good way like i adore their poly content. also @wickedlyemma is simultaneously the best and the worst because her tua fics are what got me in this hellhole to begin with mwah

but the one i mentioned on the post you’re talkin about is a diego x fem!reader x lila fic for the umbrella academy. man it lives in my mind rent FREE. holy fuck. ok listen right just humour me for a sec.

this is about 1k lmao it really got away from me

not really what you’d call Good Writing but it’s a blurb that’s vaguely coherent please enjoy

(spoilers for s2)

s2 is where the gang finally find out they’re not the only ones w abilities, right? like they don’t know about the whole ‘43′ but they have an inkling. so: an au where lila STAYS, and after all that shit w the commission, the family gets back to the present and the next hyperfixation is to try and find these other super-powered people. (none of that sparrow academy shit alright - ben’s still hangin around - let me have my self-indulgent au where these kids catch a fuckin break)

———

It’s been a few months. The family takes in Lila as one of their own, but it’s stilted. Like a puzzle piece forced into the wrong space, made to mesh and fit in an image it doesn’t belong to. Everyone’s got their own shit to deal with after the time jump and very little time to make the effort to trust her. Five doesn’t even bother, and Luther’s inclined to agree with him. But that’s okay. They’re like her, in that they’re not normal. They’re all so laughably not normal. It’s so funny she cries. 

But she has Diego. Which is all Lila really cares about at the end of the day. They’re working through things. Things she put him through. Things he needs to let go. Things they need to talk about. Little by little, they make it work. No more secrets, not with each other. They love each other too much for all that pain, all over again.

But that’s family politics and emotional healing aight back to the romance. Listen ok maybe Five does his freaky investigation shit, maybe he digs up whatever records he can find of unnatural births on October 1st, 1989. Maybe he finds one of these unnatural kids and tracks em down to a flower store downtown - closer than any of them could’ve imagined, practically in the Hargreeves’ backyard. The owner is kind, pleasant. Boring, in Five’s words. You don’t seem anything out of the ordinary.

But even with a modest little greenhouse out back, you’re still in the middle of the city. With smoke, fumes, pollution. How are the leaves that healthy? How are the flowers that vibrant? How is it, that in your shop, no plant ever really seems to die? The flourishing life your shop fosters is beautiful, but uncanny. 

And yeah, sick of being treated like a knife in the back waiting to happen, maybe Lila volunteers for recon. To get away for a while. Some part of her is desperate for a mark, itching to get back to what she’s good at. Especially since the last one went... awry. 

Since they won’t trust her to go it solo, Diego gets dragged along as a handler supervisor. Perhaps because he’s the only one they think she won’t harm. Idiots. She’d never, not her boy. Not after the Kennedy clusterfuck. So Diego goes along, and to her surprise he’s actually looking forward to it. He knows the urge to stick to a lead like your life depends on it. He’s been that person before. God, he still is.

A honeymoon, she croons in his ear, and he snorts. His hand sliding into hers brings a grin to her lips and a warmth to her cheeks.

Out of all of them, Lila’s the least recognisable. She’s learnt how to blend in, how to appear innocuous. How not to appear at all. So she slides into the florist’s with ease, just another customer. And maybe the little gardener is cute. You smile at Lila like she couldn’t do anything wrong. You see her as a person, rather than a ticking time bomb. Your face falls meekly as Lila tells you she’s buying flowers for her boyfriend. You look so pretty when you’re flustered, scarcely breathing as Lila traces the smear of soil on your cheek, tucks that errant lock behind your ear. Oh, if only you knew.

Debriefing takes longer and longer as the days go on. Lila tells Diego with giddy excitement how you hum while watering the succulents, smile at the blooming buds like you’re proud of them. How you listen to Lila like she’s the only thing that matters and how your laugh sounds like the first break of spring. And Diego might take some convincing, but he can’t help but feel somewhat enamoured with the gardener. The idea of you, at least.

Falling for your mark. It’s so cliché.

Even so, Lila gets to know you. So does Diego, living vicariously through surreptitious surveillance and Lila’s own love-struck recounts. 

Maybe they break protocol a little. Lila takes you out for coffee, learns your order. Learns that the care you attend to your plants with is applied to just about everything in your life. Including her. Maybe Diego begins to join you, discovering that all the hiding and sneaking around was pointless because the name ‘Diego’ doesn’t mean anything sinister to you. ‘Hargreeves’, though, they don’t mention. Not right now. You’re kind, not stupid, and if you do have the abilities they suspect, then any mention of the mythic family will send you running for the hills.

While Lila’s in the bathroom, Diego throws a light jab. Just to test the waters. Maybe you counter with something quick and cutting, raising a brow. And oh, how his heart flutters once he finds out you have thorns. Diego falls quicker than he realises, your sweet half-smile taking hold of his heart just like Lila’s sharp grin did, way back in ‘63. He decides, then and there, that Five doesn’t need to know about this. None of the others do.

Maybe they break protocol a lot, and show up at the flower shop one day, asking you to sit down. No more secrets, they remember. Not between them, and now, not with you. They tell you a story of cruel parents, superpowers and lonely children. Of death and rage and destruction. Of the apocalypse, which never happened yet apparently did, and how you died, a speck amongst billions. Of falling down a rabbit hole to the 60′s, and falling all the way back again. They tell you who they are, who they think you are, and why they showed up in the first place.

Five definitely doesn’t need to know about this.

It’s... a lot. You need time to process, and they understand. They don’t like it, but Diego’s not Sir Reginald and Lila’s not the Handler. So they leave you be, thinking that’s that. Their florist, yet another mistake made by The Umbrella Academy, left in the dust. You feel confused and betrayed and heartbroken for a long while. Radio silence.

Until things get better. 

You show up at their apartment one evening, weeks later, holding a potted un-sprouted bulb, panting at the doorstep like you ran all the way there. They let you in without a word. You set the flowerpot on the table and god, you talk more than they’ve ever heard from you in one sitting. It’s rambling, not all that eloquent. But they understand what you’re saying, eyes softening at your misguided panic.

And then — shyly, as if they could ever deny you anything — you ask if they want to see. (It takes Diego’s elbow in her side to get Lila’s mind out of the gutter.) You dip your fingers into the soil, frowning gently in concentration. There’s a familiar pins-and-needles sensation in your fingertips, flowing through your nerves and into the moist earth. Absently, you worry if it’ll even work. These two have a tendency to throw you off guard.

But lo and behold, the dormant bulb unfurls before their eyes in a matter of seconds, springing forth a fresh green shoot, and a moment later, a starburst of golden petals. 

A daffodil, bobbing lightly on their coffee table.

———

ugh yeah lmao this got long but that’s the fic idea, anon. thanks for askin :)

and NO the super-powered kids aren’t related - in my mind the hargreeves’ were adopted/raised together and are therefore siblings and THAT’S why they shouldn’t date each other - but diego, lila and reader have no familial connection. at all. i’m not here for any pseudo-incest shit in this fic pls and thank u.

aha look at me writing blurbs for tua fics when i have a wholeass! paz fic! published! and u n f i n i s h e d ! alsdhfgalshdfg now i want to do more someone come scream at me about ezra and oberyn and ellaria and paz and boba and din and any other character under the sun

listen y’all i have a lot of IDEAS for various fics and i also have Zero self control - please ask me about them!!!! fuck it man ask me about anything odds are i’ll fuckin write it!!!!!! i am a desperate hoe!!!! i have no self-respect!!!!