#young blood spoilers

[justhereformyblorbos]

finished the young blood book! Though it’s definitely YA rather than as mature, it gave me a lot of nostalgia for the post-S1 fics where people thought they were goin gto be ported to childhood, and I thought the little details and the way the characters were characterized was actually really good! I loved how many parallels there were to canon and the further elaboration on the day to day life of the Umbrella Academy (and Viktor)

I wouldn’t take the book as a 100% canon source, but here are some disconnected small details that I enjoyed: SPOILERS UNDER THE CUT

- Twice trying to wrangle the hargreeves is referred to as “herding cats”, which is very accurate

- Grace custom sews their outfits and adjusts them for each member 🥺🥺🥺🥺 Luther gets a new one every time he grows, Diego has secret compartments for his knives, Ben has tentacle openings, Viktor’s looks a little too big on him

- I could definitely see how this Luther turns into S1 Luther but also he’s such a good guy. He just wants to help people and receive hugs

- Diego;;; my goodness. He loves his mom and also very much has a black and white view of justice. This is when he figures out he likes all black utility gear rather than the uniform

- Allison )::: allison )::: It’s so weird to see her feel out of place among other girls considering she grows up to be a famous actress but I think it was a good moment, as well as foreshadowing for her whole issues with the rumors

- Klaus is so vibrant here. He learned how to hotwire a car (They call Hargreeves’ car Hermes) at 12 from a ghost, regularly sneaks out of the house through the sewage system (the siblings refuse to do this) and is the life of the party

- Five was mentioned and acknowledged a couple times and every time it made me go ): The revelation that Ben had a daily check-in with Klaus asking about whether he could see Five or not and always believed Five was out there somewhere destroyed me. My crumbs ): oh ):

- Ben is my favorite character so I’m so glad he gets a POV here and an actual voice! He definitely has a good heart but also definitely doesn’t fall into the solely “shy and totally passive” stereotype <3 also im just happy for content of umbrella ben i miss him

- Viktor!!! He isn’t sure if Mom claps for his violin because of if he’s actually good or. He’s very lonely but the kids do include him a little bit which is lovely. Definitely some parallels to S1 canon. Also! Some Viktor trans moments where he ruminates on that for a little bit without knowing the actual cause, the mirror line has relevance here. I thought it was handled nicely but obviously I can’t speak on experiences that aren’t my own.

Other misc details:

- Ben gets calmer under high pressure situations and therefore becomes pretty good at pool despite never having played

- Klaus likes to jump from roofs for the fun of it and just thinks his body is extremely resilient to head trauma. Klaus. Klaus no. 😭

- Diego uses “Boy Scout” as a insult for Luther, who doesn’t mind because Boy Scouts are supposed to be dependable

- Diego has always been pretty good at dancing

- The Umbrella Academy never stick around to clean up after themselves on missions

- Ben and Viktor can fit together in the passenger seat

- Favorite meals: Ben likes PB+J and potato chips, Klaus likes bubblegum ice cream, Diego likes roast beef, Luther hamburger and fries, and a hot dog for Allison (though according to her it hasn’t been her fav food in years, and also she forgot Five’s favorite and Viktor’s favorite)

- Klaus listens to heavy metal (to drown out the ghosts), Allison likes pop music

- Viktor learned how to drive one year before this book, taught by Pogo. He has his license! Klaus knows how to drive too but he drives much more recklessly lol

- Allison once had a solo magazine cover and she can’t remember whether she rumored for it or not (foreshadowing)

- Ben has never told anyone that the tentacles hurt when they come out ())):) [BODY HORROR TW] They are also literally slithering under his ski, he can feel em with his organs, and the skin is tender where they come out

- Allison knows CPR. and uses it after one of the siblings has a near death experience 👍

[merrilark]

LOL I like that the author almost certainly just looked up photos of Robert Sheehan to figure out Klaus' party outfit in Young Blood.

This just sounded too familiar. No one can tell me that this isn't that outfit.

C'mon.

[stinkyeggbow]

blisters and bedrock 🩸

[beaulesbian]

that one venatori who thought they'd get a revenge for zara during the final arc lol

[ladydreamfyyreee]

𝐑𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐝𝐢𝐝 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐥𝐨𝐨𝐤 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐠𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐛𝐢𝐫𝐭𝐡 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐫 𝐟𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭 𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐝....

𝐁𝐮𝐭 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬.

𝐌𝐲 𝐩𝐨𝐨𝐫 𝐛𝐚𝐛𝐢𝐞𝐬💔🥺

[inkedfictionista]

I must confess, it’s growing on me. I love him as the sad little egg he is, but that ginger hair is just 👌

[planetvries]

[ [ What Have I Done? ] ]

[moon-in-orbit]

“So I consumed your dead heart and carried it in my throat and I draped what was left of you on my back and I threw myself against that door. But even then it denied me freedom. ‘You cannot fool me by draping yourself in decay. I know your true nature, and it is suffering’.”

The quote is from the Beast route when she swallows you whole. Loved the description and elaboration on how the Princess and the Cabin interact. How it taunts her, the only words it offers being “This is what you deserve” and everything else being a silent promise to keep her locked away. (This post also got me thinking abt that and is honestly more well written than what I can manage)

I wonder if despite having his entrails staining her clothes and his heart in her throat, she thought about how soft his feathers were. How if things were different and they weren’t pitted against eachother, that his embrace would be comforting. How even despite what he did to her and what she did to him, it felt nice to have his arms wrapped around her.

[crowleysfall]

look at him gently cleaning daniel before he attempted to eat him armand is so kind ☺️

[feef-foof]

i hope i ate 🤞🤞 worked so hard but i think it’s worth it!! i love drawing ppl unhinged and i LOVEEEEE ford so this was fun

closeups under the cut :)

[merrilark]

Okay, I've only read a few chapters of Young Blood so far, but some of the things I really enjoy (with mild character-related spoilers; I probably won't say anything about the plot itself yet):

That we're given most of the Umbrellas' favorite foods! Klaus likes bubblegum ice cream, Diego likes roast beef with new potatoes and green beans, Luther likes hamburgers, and Allison used to like hotdogs. There's nothing about Viktor or Five's so far, but we can assume Five's has always been fluffernutters.

Diego is implied to be extremely food-motivated and I love that for him. Viktor thinks he could be a star chef if he wanted to ditch superhero work. 11/10, love foodie Diego.

Reginald named his car Hermes (I'm strangely affectionate about this).

Klaus has been hotwiring Reginald's car since 12 and was taught to drive by a dead NASCAR driver. Klaus enjoyed sitting in the garage with the car running, but didn't realize that you could get monoxide poisoning that way. He's apparently died frequently, and thought he was just going to sleep. Pogo would carry him to bed.

This implies Pogo knew that Klaus was immortal, and most likely also knew that Reginald was routinely killing him.

Klaus also has been planning to leave the Academy for a long time, but hasn't gotten up the nerve. We all know that Diego is the first to leave and (at least according to You Look Like Death) Klaus was the last, so I think this is an interesting angle. It doesn't break canon, per se, but it raises a few questions about why Klaus didn't leave like he planned.

Ben asked every day if Klaus had seen Five's ghost. His biggest hope is that they'll one day all be together again. This shatters me.

It's also interesting that Ben is both one of the most obedient and yet most vocal about Reginald's abuse. He seems extremely aware of it, but is far too afraid to defy their father and kills primarily because he knows that he'll be reprimanded if he doesn't.

Ben canonically views himself as a monster. :( I knew this. I suspected this. But still. Seeing it typed out makes me :((( lmao

I'm also really enjoying that it neither shies away from Luther/Allison nor the fact that it's extremely normalized between the Umbrellas to be pretty, unrepentant jerks toward each other. I think that if they removed any of these things, or chose to gloss over them, it'd risk watering down the effects of their abuse too much in a book that already doesn't seem keen on diving too deeply into their trauma. It's also interesting to see how blatantly weird they all are developmentally and socially, straddling a line between considering each other family and treating each other like coworkers. At times, it feels a lot like they just call each other siblings, but there's no real attachment to those terms, even if they do care about each other a lot. They really do not understand how to be a family or normal kids, or hardly even real people outside of the super-powered killing machines that Reginald wanted them to be.

On to some things I'm not totally digging but aren't a deal-breaker:

Mild canon inaccuracies. I've been told that this book is pretty glaring in the department, but so far I haven't seen anything too bad. The only notable ones so far are: - That the Umbrellas, except Klaus, have never sneaked out before. It's been a while since I've seen S1, but I could swear that it's canon that they all regularly sneaked out to Griddy's even before Five left. - Klaus calls himself a telepath. This is common fanon, but there's nothing in canon itself to support that he is capable of telepathy. In fairness, though, Sheinmel, the author, doesn't actually seem to write Klaus as a telepath. It really just reads as if she thinks that telepathy and mediumship are the same thing. - There's a lot of emphasis on Luther being big. He's constantly being described as struggling with his clothes, or fantasizing about how much larger he'll get, and rips the back out of a jacket at one point because... I guess?? he's so large??? He's very much written as if Sheinmel thinks that Luther is a musclebound 17 year old, when teenage Luther has never been big in the same way that post-serum adult Luther has been. He was always tall, yes, but I really don't think he should have been struggling with tearing clothes.

Typos. It's not glaring, but there are some errors here and there with spelling and punctuation. Combined with the telepath thing, I wonder if Sheinmel just didn't have a great editor.

The writing style is really juvenile. I knew that this would be a young adult novel, so I didn't expect beautiful prose, but the writing feels like this book is meant for the younger end of YA. It rambles, restates obvious points, and sometimes the phrasing feels dumbed down to the point of near condescension. Meanwhile, characters still use mild swears, which gives the book this weird feeling that it doesn't quite know what age bracket it was written for.

But I am otherwise really enjoying it so far. It's fun and I appreciate the insight into the Umbrellas' lives as teens and their internal thoughts about each other, regardless of how canon or not-canon this novel is.

[ladydreamfyyreee]

𝐈𝐭 𝐝𝐢𝐬𝐠𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐬 𝐦𝐞.

[momentomori24]

Horrible thought I just had (and by "just" I mean on Wednesday lol) but maybe the reason Wolfgang is always so agreeable and passive, and continues to remain composed and soft-spoken even when clearly annoyed/frustrated with or scolding someone rather than get expressively angry, is because lashing out and potentially hurting someone by doing so reminds him too much of what his dad used to do 🙃

[honeybeetlejuice]

Ivan digital art. Not my best work but im happy with it. Someone please find the meaning with the flowers ill giggle and kick my feet /nf /silly (He has arms they're just tucked behind his back 😭)

[willosword]

cecil how can u stay mad at this guy and his cute lil pouty eyebrows ☹️

[ocheeva]