Is It Just Me Or Is Chris Black In The Picture They Posted Today And Green In The Show? I Don’t Care

i swear if none of the Hargreeves run up to Sparrow Academy Ben and try to hug him because they're so happy to see him alive in season 3, I'll be throwing punches

(he got 7 of them)

So like- at first I thought that Five being the only one who wasn’t killed instantly by The Handler was just very convenient, but this is The Handler we’re dealing with. She’s good. She knows how to shoot someone fatally, she simply chose not to, she wanted him to be last one alive, for him to know what she had done. She knows him and his biggest fears, she wanted him to suffer.

Will I ever shut up about TUA? Probably, but not today, because I’ve been thinking a lot about Five and Ben and how their stories parallel each other and I am emotional. 

It’s so interesting to me, the common things that they share - they both were probably the closest/most supportive to Vanya, and both of them “left” the family in a sense. Five’s disappearance fractured the family, and Ben’s death cause it to completely break apart. They both have an interesting arc of isolation, wanting their siblings back, and being “stuck” down to the point that they’re literally stuck in the clothes that they were wearing when they disappeared from their families. 

Let’s start with Five - I was surprised, at first, that he seemed calm in his talk with Reginald. That he said he gave Reginald a hard time, instead of putting blame on Reginald. Because sure, yeah, Five is a little shit but Reginald is literally an abusive parent, why would Five, who’s arguably smart and seemed to not care about Reginald’s death in the first place, say that he was the problem? And then I thought about it and honestly - it make sense. We’ve seen an episode on Five’s life, the isolation that he felt and how badly he wanted to see his siblings again. And well, I guess he did see his siblings but their bodies, a reminder that they were in danger somewhere back in time and that he couldn’t get to them. Five is left alone with his thoughts and bodies of people he couldn’t save, and like he tells Diego, all he hears is Reginald’s voice, every day, saying “I told you so.” He has the proof that Reginald is right, he goes back and narrowly avoids it only to immediately see yet another future where his siblings die, and he’s constantly trying to go above and beyond to save his siblings. 

We even see it in his scene with Vanya - when she asks him who started the apocalypse, Five hesitates and says an asteroid, because he doesn’t want to hurt her, as blunt and detached as he’s seemed this whole series. Five probably doesn’t even really blame her, but himself. He’s convinced himself that he needs to be the one who saves his family, he goes at a lot of things alone and without their knowledge, he tries this because his isolation led him to believe that yes, Reginald was right and Five was wrong. Maybe if hadn’t been stubborn as a kid this wouldn’t have happened, maybe if he had practiced instead of being overeager they wouldn’t be in this situation. It strikes me that Five is in his same clothes, something we joke about, but Five keeps himself in this by choice. It’s a reminder of when he left, when he realized he’d made a mistake, a symbol of what happened and a reminder that he needs to save his family no matter what.

And now looking at Ben. Ben has Klaus, yes, but we see, especially in season 2, how much Ben struggles with isolation. He only has Klaus, and as much as I love him, Klaus straight up denies Ben the autonomy to interact with other humans based off of pettiness. Ben has been a passive observer for 17 years, he’s stuck in his clothes because he literally cannot change them. But you know what else? We don’t see a whole lot on Ben outside of Klaus, but we get a good glimpse on how life (or well, the afterlife) is for him when all the siblings are together. When they leave and we see Ben say, “I missed you all. So much.” He’s there, seeing everything that they do, trying to be there but unable to, and he loves them, he knows them, he understands them. Ben is the least “resentful” sibling outside of his occasional resentment towards Klaus - he wants to see his siblings succeed and be okay, and I think it’s an important look on how he lived as a ghost while they were all in the house, because they all didn’t leave right away. 

In the house? Sure he’s stuck to Klaus, but he could still see his other siblings, see how they were doing and coping. Reginald did a great job of turning the kids against each other and making them feel alone in their trauma, but Ben as a ghost got to see that Vanya was being drugged and isolated, that Luther and Allison felt like they only had each other, that Klaus needed to dope himself up to not feel the pain, he saw everything the siblings were going through and how Reginald was treating them, and you know what his conclusion was? What he said to Vanya - that Reginald was afraid of her, drugged her, made her suppress her emotions, and that was messed up. He lets her know, Vanya is surprised to hear it and probably never even realized that it was messed up, but Ben lets her know. He’s recognized that Reginald is an abusive father but that it is not their fault and that they are not the monsters because of Reginald’s bad parenting. Ben has had this time to think about who’s at fault and it wasn’t him, it wasn’t Five, it wasn’t Vanya, they were all children, it was the grown man who was supposed to be a father. 

It’s just so amazing to see and I don’t know if they’re intentionally contrasted but I think it’s so cool and heartbreaking to see how these two had to deal with isolation and came to different conclusions on their father, yes, but also came back with so much love and care for their siblings even if they express it differently. 

Me watching Vanya and Sissy fall in love:

@dailytua​‘s countdown to season two: July 28-30  | Free Space | a tribute to the high numbers, the lost Hargreeves

vanya hargreeves + tumblr text posts

Vanya Hargreeves from The Umbrella Academy is very autistic coded in my opinion. She doesn't express emotions well and bc of this could be seen as cold by some, generally awkward in social situations, is easily overwhelmed, and playing her violin is a stim for her. Her powers are tied to her emotions so when she gets overwhelmed and starts to have a meltdown her powers react along with her. I see a lot of myself in her honestly.

@vanyahargreeves07 requested:  klaus and vanyas sibling bond