Me As A Writer: Oh No I Can’t Write That, Somebody Else Already Has

Do you ever suddenly remember something you wholeheartedly believed as a child that just makes your skin shrivel up like a prune

When Five first jumped into the future and found himself in the apocalypse and found his siblings’ bodies at the mansion, he wouldn’t have found Ben’s body but wouldn’t know why. 

Do you think he stayed there a while, picking through the rubble, searching for a body that wasn’t there, just to make sure, wondering what it meant? Do you think that for a while he held on to this tiny crazy speck of hope that maybe, someway, somehow, Ben had survived? His body wasn’t at the mansion so maybe he’s still out there. Maybe he wasn’t alone, maybe he had one sibling left if he could just find him somehow. 

But then of course he would have found Vanya’s book. And he learned that Ben wasn’t the lucky one, just the opposite. And Five’s smart and he’s practical. From the beginning he’d known that there was almost no chance of Ben still being alive. He’d just wanted so very badly to believe. 

That’s a turning point for Five. That moment when he knows for certain that his brothers and sisters– all of them– are dead. And he is utterly alone. And the only thing that matters, is changing that. 

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002) dir. Peter Jackson

TW Don’t kill yourself today

Don’t kill yourself today

Because your Netflix trial still has a week left

Don’t kill yourself today

Because no one else will finish off the chicken in the fridge

Don’t kill yourself today

Because I know for a fact that Starbucks is releasing a new Frappuccino sometime next month

Yes, your mother will miss you

Yes your bully will make a sappy Facebook post about how what a a wonderful person you were

And yes

Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem

You know that

You’ve known that

Everyone and anyone has been shoving that down your throat since they first learned what the word suicide meant

So don’t kill yourself

Until you finish your shampoo and conditioner at the same time

Don’t kill yourself

Until Doctor Who is finally cancelled

Don’t kill yourself

Until you tell someone your best pasta recipe 

Don’t kill yourself 

Because I will keep coming up with reasons for you not to

And I need you

To hear all of them

Don’t kill yourself

I love you

You’re important

It’s a bad day

Not a bad life

There is more to this

The world will keep spinning on its axis without you

But

Think of all the sunrises you’d miss

I know this sounds pointless

But when you’re sitting in front of everything deadly you own

Revising your goodbyes

There will be too much darkness 

To see anything else

But this is not about seeing anything else

This is about turning off the lights

This is about finding the bed instead of the noose

This is about giving yourself one more day

Even if it takes ten thousand of those

One more morning’s

Until

“I can’t wait for tomorrow”

This is about staying alive

Because there’s gonna be a new Marvel movie

No one should miss that

This is about staying alive

Because the future is coming 

And it’s ready for you

I don’ t need you to see it

I just need you to believe you can make it 

Until then

- Hannah Dains

family hug!

I’ve been a fool! 

How often is Stan sad, for whatever reason, and he’s a sulker. Always looking worriedly into the distance, sighing heavily, hiding his head on his knees… and Richie sidles up next to him and like, pokes him and is like “Staaaaaan…”

And Stan mumbles “Stop it Richie,” and Richie spends the next indeterminate period of time making bad jokes and doing lame impressions and Stan’s like “You’re not funny Richie,” but Richie is like “Then why are you smiling?”

And Stan’s like “I’m not smiling!” Only because of that he has to start fighting back a smile. And pretty soon Richie cracks his worst joke yet and Stan full on grins and Richie’s like “Holy shit we’re witnessing a miracle!” and he does another terrible impression and Stan pushes Richie away like “I mean it Richie,” only it’s too late.

Because Stan is full on giggling now, and then Richie goes in for the kill: Stan is ticklish. Only Richie has access to this arcane and powerful knowledge. Stan basically made Richie swear not to tell anyone else, and as collateral he has a polaroid of Richie dressed up as Sailor Moon.

It’s too effective, and soon Stan is crying laughing and he forgot what he was even moping about. And Richie sing songs his refrain of “Smile for me Stanley!”

Because Richie wants everyone around him to be happy. If Richie can’t be happy, he tries his hardest to make everyone else happy. Poor Richie. Good thing Stan is a perceptive bitch! Because when Richie is down he always brings him little gifts. Home baked cookies, the latest comic book Richie was eyeing at the store after he blew his allowance on ice cream, maybe a pressed wildflower?? 

!!!!!!!!!

#prosnape #fucksnaters #uwu #antimaruaders

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???

It’s okay if you count on your fingers, if you continually change how you look, if you’re passionate about something you aren’t good at, if you’re confused about your identity, if you score low on tests often. It’s okay if you have an irregular skin tone, moles, frizzy hair, unevenly clipped nails, crooked teeth, acne, eczema. You’re enough, and you’re deserving of love.

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!”