I Will Steady Your Hand When You’re Losing Your Grip

worst birthday ever

Meals became the one time of day […] to be together – and I met them with equal parts […] and dread. Would today be the day I engaged Allison […] stand up to Diego’s taunts? Maybe I’d show Five the violin piece I’d been working on for weeks.

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. Five was […] always one […] Dad’s manipulations, and he […]-ites like my other siblings. Five […] man’s most […]-ive weakness […] compen… […] beyond […]

One morning, I left the Academy […] with clothes, snacks, and mementos […] I think I even brought a dream catcher […] from home following me wherever I went […] a bus stop, and I sat there all day long – and strangers […] first time in my life it hit me that I was completely alone. I thought I was alone my entire life, but this was new and entirely different. I was afraid of what I [didn’t know?] and would choose Dad’s torment any day over the [endless dark that stretched?] down our street. [Buses came?] […] the kind drivers away. That night I walked back […] the front doors, and no one knew I had even left to the […]. I wonder how long it would have taken them to realize the extra girl they never needed was […] existence? To this day, I’m not sure. The next time that […] was when we all did. After what happened to Ben.

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, I regret that […] among what they realized that day. I didn’t […] to leave on my own. It wasn’t until Allison took off for Hollywood and Diego cursed out the old man for good […] [realized?] we were ultimately a broken family. I […] that my family would accept me into the fold. I […] as long as there was a club to belong to, one day […] notice me and invited me too. Everyone would say “Vanya, we can’t believe we’ve wasted so much time without you, you’re our sister after all.”

But it was then that I realized […] there was nothing for me to aspire to be anymore. It was […] – the life that I had wanted for as long as I could remember […] had finally fallen apart: Without The Umbrella Academy […] and the freedom to be whomever I chose. Suddenly my violin playing wasn’t stupid – it was something that made me special.

I would say it was Dad who implemented all of this. He caused my alienation through procedures, through harsh rules that we all followed for fear of the alternative. And to an extent, that’s all true. I can’t forgive what he did to me – but sometimes I wonder where Dad’s actions ended and by siblings’ began. When you consider what a mind, especially a young mind, will absorb and harness when put into dire situations, it’s not at all difficult to believe that my siblings learned cruelty from Dad until they eventually made it their own. It wasn’t just the rules keeping me out of top-secret meetings, anymore. It just made sense that I would sit at the end of the table, so Diego could help Five’s technique, or so Allison could paint Klaus’s fingernails. I became accustomed to sulking and watching them from afar – […] my morning oatmeal went uneaten and but thoroughly […]

Highlights:

Five was Vanya’s closest sibling and the one person who treated her like an equal

Five is not an angry old man from his apocalypse time, he’s just like that

Vanya once tried to run away, and when she came back, nobody even noticed she was gone

Hargreeves treated them like lab rats (but we knew that)

Ben’s death changed everything

Diego cursed out Hargreeves (Go Diego Go!)

Allison painted Klaus’ fingernails as teens

Vanya just hates that goddamn oatmeal

I would love for them to publish Vanya’s book as a companion to the series. This tea is piping hot, and I wanna figure out which part made Ben say “Oh my god, she wrote that? I can’t believe she would do that!”

I want to love myself more this new year. I want to feel daisies growing in my bones. I want to clean the sadness inside the ocean in my head, and I want to breathe without hesitating. I want to think about the future more instead of suffocating in the past. I want to think about good things, not the bad things that can happen. I tend to drown myself in a million scenarios that could rip my skin apart, but I want to be more confident and think that I’m deserving of some never-ending glory. I want to love myself more this new year because I’m the only person who can truly make me the happiest, I just need to realize it.

- Alexa Evangelista, the book I’ll never finish writing

Pssst

Hey, are you an artist or writer with WIPs?

Come here... I got a secret for you pssst come ‘ere

Friendly reminder that Snape is NOT a good person as he did the following:

Immediately started to single out Harry on his first day of school. It’s unacceptable that he allowed his anger towards James determine the way he treated Harry.

When he had to teach the DADA class for Remus, instead of continuing where they had left off he jumped straight to learning about werewolves and set the class an essay on how to kill them.

Wanted to watch Sirius get the dementor’s kiss. That’s messed up.

He only came back onto the good side after Lily was murdered. If she had stayed alive he would’ve stayed on Voldemort’s side.

He, a man in his 30s, unnecessarily bullied students. He was Neville’s boggart and continued to make fun of Hermione’s appearance and intelligence throughout the series.

And yes, he was bullied by the marauders as a teen, but they grew out of it and he clearly didn’t.

He didn’t care if Harry and James died, as long as Lily lived.

Called Lily a mudblood, became upset when she refused to speak to him afterwards and tried to apologise and say her blood status didn’t matter despite the fact that the organisation he was a part of believed the opposite

Ignored James’ body and Harry crying so he could cling onto Lily’s corpse. Creepy? Very.

Showed favouritism towards Slytherins to a ridiculous level

Has no personal hygiene. Wash your greasy hair please.

Forced Neville to use his potion on his toad, assuming Neville has messed up the potion and it would poison his toad.

As a teenager he created a spell to slash up his enemies??

Didn’t respect Lily’s choice to be with James and not him and then became obsessive towards her.

Became a DEATH EATER

Yes he was bullied and didn’t have a great childhood, but do you know who else didn’t have a great childhood? Harry. And he turned out fine because he is a good person.

He never showed remorse or regret for anything mentioned above.

Now, I’m not saying he isn’t a good character, because he is certainly a very well written character. I’m also not saying that he never did anything good and was never a victim. However, the fact is that the bad easily outweighs the good.

Just in case this needs to be said:

It’s the first draft. Use the word “suddenly.” Put as many dialogue tags and adverbs as you want. Say “he saw” “she remembered” “she felt” “they wondered” as many times as you need to. Put the em dash there, put in too many commas, use semi-colons with reckless abandon. Type in [whatever] instead of thinking up a title for something. Just write it. If you worry too much about the particulars, about all the advice posts you’ve seen saying whatever you’re doing is wrong or not good enough, you won’t get anything done. It will slow you down as you go back and try to reword what you just wrote to make it better, proper. The first draft doesn’t have to be perfect. It just has to be done. And when you get to the end, you’ll find that all those “mistakes” are just clues for your future self to put together to make it all better.

Putting in adverbs and certain dialogue tags are a note for you as to who is saying something and how they’re saying it. When you’re editing, you can make sure it shows through the story instead. The word “suddenly” is a reminder to make things more abrupt. The first draft is just you mapping out where you want to go and how you want to get there. Don’t waste time trying to get it 100% right now, because then it will never get done. Don’t think too much– just write. Save the thinking for editing later.

you’re telling me there are people who listen to music and DON’T use it as the soundtrack for the intense cinematic daydream plot they’ve always got playing in the back of their head???

me as a writer: Oh no I can’t write that, somebody else already has

me as a reader: hell yes give me all the fics about this one scenario. The more the merrier