#I always think back to Gerard’s original concept for the seance

[buildoblivionthenwewilltalk]

is anyone else a little disappointed that we didn’t get alphonso and jaime hanging around as bitchy ghosts to keep klaus on his toes

[boojersey]

VIC DO ALL THE ASKS BC I LOVE U AND WANT U TO HAVE FUN

*SWEATS* AYE AYE CAPN

cw for like some common lgbt+ topics such as dysphoria violence discrimination etc just. tread carefully if u get triggered easily by bad lgbt experiences

What do you identify as and what are your pronouns? -im a gay trans man and my pronouns are he/him but they/them is also acceptable!

How did you discover your sexuality, tell your story?-oh wow i originally thought i was a lesbian because i didnt even know what transgender was i just thought wishing i was a man meant i was butch and then i met my friend donnie in eighth grade who told me he was trans and it was kinda a huge slap in the face but with a sack of gay bricks? and i found out i dont like women through actually having sex with cis women and finally realizing it. really wasnt for me so now im just a gay man as opposed to queer as an umbrella term but i periodically refer to myself as such

Have you experienced being misgendered? What happened and how did you overcome it?-oh yea i literally was misgendered today i just kinda brush it off but it can be hard sometimes especially when people know im trans and do it

Who was the first person you told, how did they react?-i first told donnie about my gender, it was a thing where i went to bed the night i met him and was like  .. wait holy fuck and then the next day i was like BRO HOLY FUCK but sexuality? i dont really know???? it was so long ago it was honestly probably my group of friends on kik that i had in 2013 (u were included in that mister!!!!)

Describe what it was like coming out, what did you feel?-im not actually fully out but the first time someone who was an adult knew about my trans-ness was what really set in for me the fact that i could come out one day; my friends mom referred to me as seance (and like. obviously she respected my gender she has a trans kid) but it was just super jarring bc no adult had known yet abt my identity in any way and as a result i was rlly glad it was nighttime in that car bc i cried almost immediately; the first time i came out on my Own was to my cousin and he laughed in my face so that was pretty damn awful and its kinda funny cuz the bastard is bi so u would think hed have been accepting but n0pe!

If you’re out, how did your parents/guardians/friends react?-im out to my friends now ! and the reception was generally positive bc i think i do an ok job at picking ppl to be around in terms of morals so there was little bad reception

What is one question you hate people asking about your sexuality?-i hate when ppl ask if im gay as in for men or gay as in for women because im trans, i am a man so when i say im gay i feel like that should be easy enough to put 2 and 2 together but when they ask that i feel as if they still view me as a woman

Describe the style of clothing that you most often wear.-emo of the gods themselves it is absolute scene and emo vomit and i love it; its seriously hard for me to wear dresses and skirts without dysphoria and just general discomfort but i own a couple anyway bc theyre cute i just. never wear them

Who are your favourite lgbt+ ships?-my main thing at the moment is gerard/frank/grant morrison bc i love poly fics very dearly and gerard/bert because bert mccracken deserved better than gerawrds internalized homophobia lol

What does makeup mean to you? Do you wear any?-makeup to me is an androgynous thing so i wear eyeshadow a lot and lipstick sometimes, eyeshadow is easier on my eyes than eyeliner bc im allergic to a lot of makeup thats on the heavier side so if i put on eyeliner my eyes will water and burn throughout the day but with eyeshadow im mostly ok; other opinion is that makeup on Anyone can be sexy as hell if they do it for fun and wear literally what they truly want and not just what they think is accepted or what they Should wear

Do you experience dysphoria? If so, how does that affect you?-oh yeah my dysphoria is pretty debilitating if im gonna be honest; i used to have very little problems with it because my hold on reality was loose at best (before i was medicated to clarify) but now that i am almost completely Here my dysphoria is pretty bad and even just like. the knowledge that i have breasts is pretty awful; a few weeks ago i put on an outfit that i have to wear a victorias secret bra to fit properly in and just one look in the mirror had me sobbing and i had to change my clothes before i could leave the house and i havent worn a bra since because just the thought of showing off my chest makes this stark fuckin dread shoot through my veins but i also have dysphoria in regards to my voice that i discussed at my last trans therapy group meeting actually ; my voice has a tendency to bounce around my octave range so sometimes ill be like. excited then hear what i sound like. and ruin it for myself immediately u kno? im not even gonna talk about my dicksphoria bc thats just. awful. 

What is the stupidest thing you’ve heard said about the lgbt+ community?-ohhhhhhhh my god u know what? ive heard..so much .. that im gonna instead take this opportunity to mention my mother genuinely thinks dnd is satanic

What’s your favourite thing about the lgbt+ community?-the fact that were so strong. we are so fucking strong we deal with violence and opposition constantly and at staggering rates yet we stay strong and we continue loving through all of it, whether its in dark corners in secret or loudly in the streets we continue loving and do so with all of our beings because we know its our own truth and well gladly go to hell if it means we got to love on earth (not that everyone believes in hell or the idea that us gays go to hell but my point stands)

What’s your least favourite thing about the lgbt+ community?-we have this audacity to create divide (to the fault of mostly cis white gay men thank u very much) when what we need to do is love each other because we are different but at the end of the day we all need to remain in tandem and as a family or we will never get to where we need to in terms of acceptance and that means being uplifting and protecting our trans sisters of color, our disabled lgbt members, our autistic lgbt members, our anything past cis white gay man because we all need recognition, we all need love, and to exclude any letters of lgbt is to tear ourselves down and set ourselves on fire

Have you ever been to your cities pride event? Why or why not?-no :((( no one would drive me in the past and i dont think ill have a way to get there this year either

Who is your favourite lgbt+ Icon/Advocate/Celebrity?-brian molko! my bisexual, androgynistically-inclined father who birthed me at the tender age of 16 when i found placebo

Have you been in a relationship and how did you meet?-ya theres been a few and i dont rlly like to talk abt my relationships with anyone unless theyre online relationships so im just gonna leave it at that

What is your favourite lgbt+ book?-pantomime by laura lam! its one of if not my favorite book to this day

Have you ever faced discrimination? What happened?-y a every damn day bitch ! example is when i was deadnamed by my psychiatrist while she knows full well what my name is the other day; another is the countless times i get called a lesbian ???? and when strict lesbians ask me out i get a very bad taste in my mouth (i understand full well that sexuality is fluid, these are lesbians that spit the ‘penis is gross blegh’ rhetoric)

Your Favorite lgbt+ movie or show?-uh im just gonna say preacher bc its my favorite show altogether n cass is bi/pan/something similar

Who are some of your favourite lgbt+ bloggers?-@ble3dmagic is my boyfriend in crime (not rlly thats a joke) and @musicalsense​ is my sunburnt Brother

Which lgbt+ slur do you want to reclaim?-queer! i also use f*ggot a lot when talking about myself and my friends that are ok with it

Have you ever gone to a gay bar, or a drag show, how was it?-i went to a drag show and it was so amazing and one of the first times i felt accepted in my own community that i cried

How do you self-identify your gender, and what does that mean to you?-well i identify as a man with no leaning towards womanhood or nonbinaryhood in any way, its just . man . but in terms of Expression i am quite androgynous bc i can rlly appreciate femininity (NOT the same as womanhood) and being a man to me means just that ive always wanted to grow up with that “gender role” like i always wish i was raised as a stereotypical parent would raise a son and ive always been more interested in stereotypically masculine things and people since i can even remember and i feel like puberty was just this unpreventable spiral into something i didnt want. i didnt want it at all . this is tmi but when i got my first period i cried my eyes out bc the idea of being called a Woman repulsed me so much and since i didnt even know that being trans was a concept i was just this scared puppy full of confusion and fear aimed at myself because all the stuff i heard i was supposed to be proud of the change but i wasnt i was so ashamed of it and the idea of being called a woman made me sick to my stomach and i just wish i could go back in time and hold myself and tell me itll be alright 

Are you interested in having children? Why or why not?-absoLutely not i hate kids (and by that i mean i hate being around them and the culture that surrounds having children; i do not treat kids like shit and i do not act like hating children is a personality trait; i get migraines and usually the second a child starts screaming or crying i am on the floor of my brain writhing in dire pain and i have absolutely no desire to support another human life when frankly i cant even support myself; its also just not a lifestyle i want to live)

What identity advice would you give your younger self?-god so fucking much. so fucking much. so many things i wish i could say to myself

What do you think of gender roles in relationships?-i think if someone wants to adhere to them then hell yea go ahead just dont expect others to do it or try to tell other people its a Norm or something; theyre for the most part christian in nature so i dont have any desire to follow them myself, i want a relationship (if any) thats more of a coexistence if that makes sense, like. roommates plus dick

Anything else you want to share about your experience with gender?-i always used to anxiously chew on the idea that my chest dysphoria is just me holding disdain for the shape and size of my breasts but let me tell you. the second i put on my binder for the first time i immediately started crying because i was so overwhelmed by the fact that i was looking at something one step closer to myself and i know full well i am never going to have that doubt again. this week has been exponentially cathartic and therapeutic for me

What is something you wish people know about being lgbt+?-i want the cisheteros to know that nothing they learn about us is new. everything about us has been around for so so long but has been silenced and erased to the point where a lot of us dont even know many things about our rich and beautiful history

Why are proud to be lgbt+?-honestly? its hard for me to not just straight up say im not proud of my identity. its taken me years to stamp down the plain grieving toward my identity and wishing i could have the easier path but frankly? the fact that i am choosing this path of hardship and hell on earth just to be who i truly am i think speaks volumes of my pride in my identity at this point; further back in my archive by a few years my posts are littered with sentiments of bitterness wherein i stated that i hate being trans and not just cis but i like to think ive finished hating myself for my identity. i like to think im proud now. to ask me why is to ask too much of me, all i know now is that i am proud and thats enough for me right now.

[gerardwayisarchive]

Gerard Way on Umbrella Academy: Hotel Oblivion and the TV Series

https://gerardwayisalive.tumblr.com/post/181689658259

https://www.denofgeek.com/us/books/the-umbrella-academy/278030/gerard-way-umbrella-academy

John Saavedra Jan 3, 2019

This article contains Umbrella Academy spoilers.

Gerard Way is a bit tired on the third day of New York Comic Con. He'd stayed up late for a Netflix cast dinner the night before (he's in bed by 9:45 most nights) and had overslept this morning. Worst of all, he'd been forced to skip his morning meditation.

"It's kind of throwing my whole day off," Way tells me as we sit together in a corner of the Dark Horse booth at the Javits Center, hidden from the masses. The writer/musician is dressed in a big fatigue jacket, hair long and shaggy. He's starting to show hints of a shiny gray. Once impeccably clean-shaven, he now sports a mustache and beard.

Gone are the days of bleached hair, marching bands, and eyeliner. The force of nature who belted out songs about wasted youth, love lost, and doom as the frontman of My Chemical Romance is dead (like the Black Parade itself). Three cheers for the next life of Gerard Way, one of the best comic book writers currently working.

In October, following his excellent work on DC's Doom Patrol with artist Nick Derington, Way finally returned to his original comic book creation, The Umbrella Academy, after an almost ten-year hiatus. The new story arc, Hotel Oblivion, is a grand return for the series as well as for Way and the brilliant Brazilian artist Gabriel Ba, who first collaborated on the series in 2007 and won an Eisner for Best Limited Series in 2008.

The Umbrella Academy is the story of an estranged family of superheroes, years past their prime, who must navigate a nightmarish family reunion, prevent the end of the world, and deal with their traumatic pasts at the hands of their cold (and sometimes abusive) father. In the series' first arc, Apocalypse Suite, the team must stop one of their siblings, a classically trained violinist, from bringing about the end of the world with her evil orchestra. The follow-up, Dallas, is the story of Number Five, a time-traveling assassin who's hired to go back to 1963 and kill John F. Kennedy. It's up to his siblings to either help him or thwart the assassination from ever taking place.

Just three issues into Hotel Oblivion, Way and Ba have laid the foundation for another epic story, this time spanning not only time but also space. At the center of this tale is the titular hotel, a purgatorial prison located in an alternate dimension meant to house the world's worst criminals. The secrets of this hotel and the family's connection to it are the focus of the arc, but there are also plenty of other strange shenanigans along the way.

You have to read it to believe it: 43 superpowered orphans are born around the world at the same time to women whom just seconds before hadn't been pregnant. This is the big bang of Way and Ba's outrageous comic book universe, an alternate version of our reality where Kennedy wasn't assassinated and wrestlers wage war against giant space monsters in the ring. Seven of these orphans are adopted by Sir Reginald Hargreeves, a rich scientist who also happens to be an undercover alien, and turned into the world's most famous superhero team, the Umbrella Academy. Together, these extraordinary kids have stopped the Eiffel Tower from taking over the world, defeated a rampaging Lincoln Memorial, and put all manner of costumed villains behind bars.

But those were the good old days.

By the start of the story, one of the orphans is already dead. You quickly find out he was the lucky one because the remaining six siblings are seriously fucked up, thanks to their manipulative and emotionally unavailable father, who's very good at saving the world but terrible at giving the kids what they need the most: love and support.

When the remaining members of the team -- Luther aka Spaceboy, Diego aka the Kraken, Allison aka the Rumor, Klaus aka the Seance, Number Five, and Vanya aka the White Violin (but only after discovering her apocalyptic powers as an adult) -- return home for Sir Reginald's funeral, things only get more complicated. Spaceboy struggles with depression, Kraken is unable to get close to anyone, Rumor's marriage is breaking down, Seance falls deeper into drug addiction, and Number Five...well, he's actually doing alright...

By the end of Dallas, the team is more broken than ever before and it seems that only distance from each other can help mend these characters. Well, a decade was plenty of distance, a lot of time for Way to consider what came next for his children. By the time Way started working on Umbrella Academy again in 2014, he found that the way he thought about these characters had changed.

"I think I understand them in different ways now," Way says. "I think I'm less hard on them. I think I've found more compassion in dealing with them. I've put them through some really hard things and sometimes I feel bad about it."

These days, Way is interested in really digging into the trauma these characters have faced and maybe even giving them some space to heal.

"Trauma is a very intense thing and a very real thing and everybody experiences it in some way. I obviously did not have a childhood like these kids. But I did have a childhood in which I needed to escape a lot."

Hotel Oblivion certainly feels like an escape for the Hargreeves siblings, who are spread out all over the globe (and in the afterlife because that's how the Seance rolls). The first four issues are a sort of exhale for these characters, who are still recovering from major losses, heartbreak, and the whole JFK business.

After all the blood, explosions, betrayals, and deaths, Hotel Oblivion is meant to be cathartic, according to Way: "It's about the past. It's about mistakes. It's about fathers. It's about redemption. It's definitely a therapeutic series."

At the center of the story is still the concept of family. The Rumor is trying to help Vanya recover from the injuries she suffered in Apocalypse Suitewhile also trying to reconnect with her civilian family and working with the ultra-violent Number Five on his latest gambit.

Most surprising is the mending relationship between the Kraken and the team's former leader, Spaceboy. While stuck in an eternal sibling rivalry in the first two arcs -- Kraken challenges Spaceboy's leadership, Spaceboy condemns Kraken's impulsivity -- these scarred heroes start to reach out to each other in Hotel Oblivion. It's a change in the dynamic of the team that didn't seem possible back in 2009.

"Kraken's interesting and his relationship with Spaceboy changes in this series," Way explains. "A lot of it had to do with the fact that I was tired of writing that type of character, that rebellious fool, that Wolverine kind who always gives the leader shit. I never saw Kraken always being that way. I thought he was gonna be that way in the beginning and then he would grow."

Kraken, the loner who most resembles the "Batman" of the group, is actually the one trying to reunite the superhero team. Meanwhile, an overweight Spaceboy, who fled to Tokyo after the events of Dallas, is dealing with an existential crisis and no longer interested in leading his siblings.

"He's searching," Way says of Spaceboy. "I like the idea of a lost leader. A leader that doesn't have the answers anymore. Who's maybe not even a leader anymore. So I loved exploring that with Spaceboy."

Spaceboy isn't the only leader in need of redemption, though. Even Sir Reginald deserves a re-examination, according to Way.

"I learned more about him. I learned more about his history in working through this stuff, and I can't reveal any of that, obviously. But I've learned to find even compassion for him. Like there's a reason he is the way he is. Over the course of the series, you discover that reason of why he is this kind of ruthless person."

For these heroes, their father remains the catalyst for their problems. Will these characters ultimately find peace (and maybe even love) where it previously eluded them? It's too early to say, but at the very least, the search for the Hotel Oblivion gives them a new place to inevitably find and help each other.

"The story at one point was gonna be a little bit less about the people that live in the hotel, but over time I found that I really wanted to tell their stories, so there are a lot more characters in Hotel Oblivion than there were nine years ago."

The Hotel Oblivion, with its faceless bellhops and cockroach entrees, might remind one of Captain Willard's stay in Saigon in the opening minutes of Apocalypse Now. Willard's hotel room is a sort of purgatory before his journey back to hell, a way station where he's left to relive his trauma over and over until he's lying naked on the dirty carpet, crying, bleeding, and a bit mad.

Way's prison isn't quite as dramatic as that, but it's doubly as terrifying. When Sir Reginald sends the villainous Murder Magician to the hotel, we get to see firsthand the lengths to which Sir Reginald will go to "save the world," letting the bad guys rot in a TripAdvisor hellscape without a trial.

"The concept of Hotel Oblivion deals a little bit with capital punishment," Way explains. "I think in terms of current events and the state of our world right now, in future Umbrella Academy volumes, we'll see a little more of that creep its way into the book. But right now I really wanted to explore capital punishment because we know what a super prison is."

Watching the villain watch a grotesque Lynchian cartoon about mice on the hotel television with nowhere else to go for the rest of eternity, you even start to feel for him. In one panel, he looks out his window at the desert beyond the hotel, surrounded on all sides by desolation and the bony carcasses of animals. This place could break him, the villain's face seems to say (Ba's pencils bring depth and emotion beautifully to this book).  

"You don't really see mainstream comics exploring the ramifications of somebody having to live in Arkham Asylum and what that does to somebody psychologically. Or if the Phantom Zone is ethical punishment. So it deals a lot with that."

Way took inspiration from his real-life travels when creating the titular hotel, which he based on the Benson Hotel in Portland, Oregon where he stayed while working on the original Umbrella Academy stories.

"It's a very old hotel and it's kinda classy, but it's also a little bit old. From the outside, it kinda looks like the Hotel Oblivion," Way recalls. "I would be really isolated in that room just writing. I started to become inspired by the environment that I was in."

There was a time in Way's life when the writing didn't come so easy, though. Way told EW back in October that writing Umbrella Academy while on the road with My Chemical Romance became more difficult, describing the twilight of the band during that final tour as "really taxing." The band broke up in 2013 and Way jumped straight into a solo album, Hesitant Alien, soon after, further delaying his comic book work.

Way has a steady place to work now, a studio separate from his house. That's where the magic happens.

"I wake up really early, I hang out with my daughter, get her ready for school, I take her to school, I come back, I meditate, and then I start writing. And that takes up most of my time. I only make music on Fridays."

Since our chat, Way has released two groovy new songs, "Baby, You're a Haunted House" and "Getting Down the Germs," which show the artist moving away from both his emo pop roots and Britpop revival sensibilities to a more psychedelic sound. "Germs" even has a flute solo courtesy of renowned flutist Sara Andon. A third song, "Dasher," is a lovely Christmas ballad about a girl who falls in love with a reindeer, with backup vocals by Lydia Night of The Regrettes. Yeah, this is Way like we've never heard him before.

Way is also working on the upcoming Umbrella Academy Netflix series. The first season, which is set to debut on Feb. 15, will adapt both Apocalypse Suite and Dallas. That's quite a bit of ground to cover (across at least three different time periods), but Way, who has spent a lot of time on set as an executive producer, says that the series is going deeper into certain parts of the story than the comics did.

"Since they have more time, they can get deeper into things that may only be like two pages in the comic. And that's been really cool. They explore the characters a lot more." Way teases that both arcs "were expanded for the TV show. There are new elements in there. They've kind of enhanced the experience of those two graphic novels."

Beyond Hotel Oblivion and the Netflix show are more comics. In fact, Way is already developing the fourth arc with Ba.

"I'm putting all my notes together. So basically I know that there are eight volumes of Umbrella and I know what happens in each of them. I know what happens in the fourth. We're basically gonna take about three months between Hotel and when we start series four."

What can Way tease about series four? The arc will explore the biggest mystery at the center of their superhero universe, according to Way.

"We're finally gonna get to see some more of the 43 individuals." But he won't say any more about that.

Don't worry, though. The writer knows that you've been waiting a long time to learn more about these characters, to spend more time in their world. At the end of our chat, he opens up about how much it means to him that fans continue to ask for The Umbrella Academy.

"I just really appreciate them sticking around," Way says. "If people didn't care about it, I don't know, maybe I would have moved on to something else. But they still really want to know the whole story and so it's my duty to tell that story. I'm gonna give them what they want."

The Umbrella Academy: Hotel Oblivion #1-4 are out now. Issue #5 is out on Feb. 6. The Netflix series premieres on Feb. 15.

John Saavedra is an associate editor at Den of Geek. Read more of his work here. Follow him on Twitter @johnsjr9.