#i thought eudora was hilarious

[anna-scribbles]

regained my 12 year old swag(read an entire new percy jackson book in one sitting)

[joaquinwhorres]

shots (Diego Hargreeves x Reader)

SUMMARY ››››› Dating is hard. But it's even harder when you know you're dating the wrong people. The right guy just isn't interested.

REQUEST ››››› ANNA HI HELLO FRIEND. okay, you're taking requests? i'm gonna SCREAM but okay could you do number 45 and diego, please? also i'm gonna look at the thing you sent me last night right now (45. Rubbing the back of their hand with a thumb.) 

WORD COUNT ››››› 3,016

WARNINGS ››››› takes place partially at a shooting range

A/N ››››› I wrote this as a continuation of alone together, but it can really be read as a standalone. I just loved the reader + Diego's dynamic, so here's more.

You've been into Diego Hargreeves since your police academy days, which is to say, a nearly obscene amount of time. It's hard to pinpoint exactly how long it's been, though, because as with most things, falling for him was a rather fluid process. One minute you were reveling in the fact that you were suddenly single for the first time in three and a half years. The next, you were hanging off every word in his tirade about saving teargas for bad guys rather than protestors. And yet, it also felt so sudden. As if he had come out of nowhere and clotheslined you the way he did one of the instructors in restraint training.

And while it's hard to say when you fell for him, why is entirely too easy. You liked him because he wasn't afraid. He was stupid and brash, but he was bold and honest when it mattered. But more than that, you liked how he cared so deeply and passionately about doing the right thing rather than doing things the right way. Even when it cost him. 

Also, his forearms.

You’re watching them now, muscles rippling under his tight long sleeved shirt as he raises the gun, his gaze intensely focused on the target. You hope he doesn’t see you staring in his periphery because it’s pretty obvious you’re not just checking his form. There's a breath and then he fires five rounds into the piece of paper, every shot precise and lethal. 

“That’s how it’s done, baby,” he grins, laying the gun down as he steps back to direct his excitement at you. As if he'd ever done anything less than absolutely perfect at the range. Still, you can’t help but smile back even as you roll your eyes. You love it when he calls you baby. Even though he only ever says it to tease you, it still feels like it's your nickname that he has for you. 

Yeah. You’ve got it bad. 

Which is unfortunate because he simply doesn't. He's never so much as shown a single bit of interest besides the first day he met you, and let his eyes linger on your body a little too long. But after that? Nothing. It soon became clear that he only had eyes for Eudora, and while it was tempting to be jealous it was all too understandable. She was gorgeous and smart and kind and obviously going to make a damn good cop. But even after that imploded, he never seemed interested. You'd come to the conclusion that you were simply too close, which was unfortunate but also fine.

It would be fine.

You just need to follow your friends’ advice and find someone new to focus on. And not just flings. You've tried the "get over by getting under" method and it just doesn't work. You need romance, a good personality, someone you want to see again outside of the bedroom. What you need is a boyfriend. Instead you've gotten:

Ghosted more times than you can count

Four no-shows for dates

One catfish

Five break up texts

Seven dick pics

Six angry men calling you a whore

Three dates that were meant for other people

The most recent of the “oops I texted the wrong girl” dates had been a week ago, and you suspect it's also the reason Diego dragged you out to the shooting range today. Diego doesn't talk about feelings--you learned that real quick--but he is more empathetic than he looks. He just doesn't know how to translate that into words. Thus, shooting range. It's sweet. 

Except for the fact that he's an insufferable show off. That makes it a bit less sweet.

“Yeah, yeah, cheater,” you huff, moving forward to take his spot at the firing line. Obviously you can't tell if he cheated, but his arms had looked a bit too low for one of those shots to be as perfect as it was. You pick up the gun, waiting for his instructions, eyeing the target. 

"Head right 7, body right 9, body bullseye, head bottom 9, body bottom 8," he decides. Of course he gave you more body than head shots. 

It's tempting to insist that he keeps up the pretense that this is an even and fair competition and give you another head shot. But your time is running out, and who are you kidding--you'd like the win. So, you nod to confirm his choices before lifting the gun up and taking a breath in to clear your head of all else, the constant rejection, the unrequited crush, the stress at work, so you can focus. And then, you breathe out.

Your shots aren’t as pretty as Diego’s, but they all hit their marks. 

“Not bad,” he says as you place down the gun and then spin around to grin at him. 

“Not bad?” you echo back, gesturing to the target. “That’s the best all day.”

“That's the best you got all day,” he corrects, smugly. “Not the best.”

The smile vanishes from your face, replaced with narrowed eyes. "You're a dick."

He laughs then as you double check the chamber to make sure the gun's unloaded and ready to be packed up. "A huge dick," you clarify, placing the firearm in its case and turning to follow him out.

"Better than a small one," he shoots back, removing his headphones once the two of you enter the lobby.

If it weren't for range safety and all that, you'd kick him in the back of the knees. Instead, you settle on glaring at the back of his head as he checks the two of you out, stuffing your safety glasses and headphones into your bag.

"I really hate you, you know that right?" you ask as the two of you push through the door and out into the parking lot. 

"Not sure I'd say that if I was the person who needs a ride home," Diego smirks at you over his shoulder as the two of you reach his car. 

"Like there's even going to be room for me in the car anymore now that your head's so big," you say, reaching over to flick him on the side of the head. Before he has a chance to respond you speed walk to the passenger's seat and get in before he can lock you out.

"You're lucky I like you," Diego says, pointing a finger at you before he climbs in, sticks the keys in the ignition and shifts into reverse. You take your cell phone out of your pocket as he pulls out of the parking spot, hand resting on the back of your chair so he can look over his shoulder. You feel your cheeks grow hot and are thankful that his eyes are on the road and yours are on your phone screen. 

There are approximately 16 unread messages.

None of them are good.

In fact, you're feeling pretty crushed as you scroll through them. It doesn't help when Diego withdraws his arm to shift the car into drive. He pulls out of the parking lot and onto the main road, and you try to pull yourself together but end up just wilting into your seat. It's not your friends' fault. Yesenia's babysitter fell through. Galilea was caught up with more work than she anticipated. Lilly probably really did need the extra time to study for her actuarial exam. These were all reasonable excuses. But it still sucked.

"What's up?" Diego asks as you slow to a stop at the red light. 

"Nothing," you say absent mindedly, texting out a message to the group. Life happens 🙃How about next Saturday?? 

Diego's eyes dart to you before going back to the road as the light turns green. "Y/N," he prompts.

You turn off your screen and cast a look at him. "It's really nothing; my friends just cancelled on me tonight." He remains quiet and you try to push out the growing frustration that you've been planning this for a solid week and it's only now, hours before, that all of these conflicts pop up. "We were supposed to go out," you sigh. "You know, do drinks and dancing."

He's silent again, only the sound of the turn signal clicking echoing throughout the car.  "Alright, so what time tonight?" Diego finally asks, pulling you from your thoughts. 

It takes longer than it should to piece together what he's offering, but the thought of Diego taking you dancing is just too much on so many levels. The most immediate level being how absolutely hilarious it would be to see Diego dance. The thought alone elicits a surprised laugh.

"What's so funny?" Diego asks, his brow furrowing. It's clear he wants to glare at you but the car ahead moves, and he takes his chance to make the left turn. 

"You want to go dancing?" You ask, through giggles.

"And?" He sounds offended, but you're still trying to picture Diego on the dance floor and every resulting image is sending you into further hysterics. He catches on, eventually. "You don't think I can dance!"

"Mm-mm," you hum, shaking your head, and there's literally tears coming down from your eyes as you picture Diego doing the Hitch dance at the club. God, he always knew how to pull you out of your spirals. 

His face screws up into a frown, and you can vaguely tell he's annoyed. Unfortunately, you don't care. "I'm a great dancer!" he protests, turning onto your street. 

"Ok, ok," you say, finally calming down enough to stop laughing and wipe away the tears from your eyes. "Meet here at 9 and we'll decide on a place?" you ask as he pulls into a spot near your building.

He nods, still clearly annoyed, but he's a good friend, better than most, and doesn't rescind his offer. In return you give him a beaming smile as you climb out the door. Almost immediately you turn around and tap on the window. He raises an eyebrow and rolls it down. 

"Yes?"

"You know you're not allowed to wear that, right?" You check, pointing at his black on black tactical uniform. He looks as if he's a real life Batman. Right now he's giving you the Batman glower. "I'm serious, Diego. Go shopping if you have to." 

"Bye, Y/N," he says, pulling away from you without even bothering to roll the window up. You smile to yourself and walk to your building's front door. You cannot wait for tonight.

  Diego knocks on your door a few minutes after nine. It's tempting to give him a hard time about being late, to tell him that you thought yet another friend had abandoned you in your hour of need, but seeing as he had to rearrange whatever plans he had in order to take you out dancing, you decide to let him off the hook. 

You're kind of glad that you didn't come up with a witty line for when you opened the door because holy shit, he’s handsome.

In a way, he's stuck to the usual uniform. It's black on black, and he clearly has put no effort into his hair or shaving the stubble lining his jaw, but he's missing the usual tactical harness, armguards, and gloves. Instead, his arms are on full display, and while you're able to admire his muscles under his usual tight black shirt, it's nothing compared to what that short sleeved button up is doing for him. He looks broader, fuller, and more human than you've ever seen him.

"Look at you, all cleaned up," you say, allowing your eyes to run over his body under the pretense that you're teasing him. "Do a twirl for me," you demand, spinning your finger. He rolls his eyes, but slowly spins in a circle so you can admire each angle. "It'll do," you say, allowing him into the apartment.

"Glad I meet the standard," he says, coming in further. You're still staring at him and are able to see the exact moment his eyes land on the two shot glasses and bottle of tequila that you've placed out on your kitchen island. His eyes light up and naturally, he makes a bee line for the booze. Even more naturally, you follow him.

"We're gonna have a good time, then?" he asks, eyeing the tequila.

"Oh yeah," you confirm, grabbing the shaker of salt from the table on your way into the kitchen. Diego pours out a shot for each of you, sloshing a bit on the counter as you salt your hand. When you pass the salt over to him, your fingers brush causing a warm and tingling sensation to stir in your stomach. You probably shouldn't have already taken a couple of sips from the bottle. Maybe if you hadn't, you wouldn't be watching him so intently as he licks his hand. You're able to tear your eyes away to grab a lime and place one in front of him as he finishes.

"To a good time," Diego says, raising his glass to yours. You clink your shot glass against his before swiping the salt off your hand with your tongue, following it with the silver tequila burning its way down your throat. Placing the glass down, you grab the wedge of lime and bite into it, allowing the lime juice to ease the sweeten the sting.

"Mm," you hum, taking the lime out of your mouth and placing it on the opposite edge of the cutting board from the rest of the lime slices. Diego places his wedge over yours and looks at you. 

"Another?” he asks, and well, you can’t let the rest of the lime go to waste. Besides, even well drinks are expensive these days. 

After your second shot, Diego moves to clean up the island as you watch. “Taxi should be here at 9:30.”

“You decide on a place yet?” he asks, and you hum a yes, eyes on him as he places the bottle of tequila up with the rest of your alcohol. It's easy to blame the tequila, but you're not sure if that's 100% why you feel the surge of almost overwhelming tenderness for him. 

"Hey, Diego?" your voice comes out a bit smaller than you'd like, and he notices too because he turns to face you immediately, eyebrows raised. "Thanks for coming out tonight."

He relaxes, shoulders dropping slightly, and his smile which always looks like it's caught between being a smirk and a genuine grin comes out. "We're supposed to be alone together, right?"

"Right," you agree, and you're certain he'll see your affection glowing off you like some kind of aura. Except he turns quickly back to dump the cutting board and knife into the sink.

"How's all that going by the way?" he asks, still bent over the sink. He has to mean dating. Or maybe your feelings. You're proficient in Diego-speak but you're not sure if you'll ever be fully fluent. He's hard to read his words; it's much easier to read his face.

"I think I meant what I told you," you say with a sigh. "I think I'm done with all that."

He turns around to face you then, and you can see the concern and sadness on his face. Sympathy is a rare emotion for Diego, and you don't like how it makes you feel. "Look, if you want to find someone, you can't give up."

"It's just hard to put myself out there when I know none of them are right," you say, frustration and an aching loneliness fizzing under your skin. "You know? None of them are you." The words come out too fast to stop, and it takes less than a breath to reach you could grab them out of the air. Your face is growing hot, but you push it back down and quickly try to remedy the situation, “I mean none of them are like you.” 

He seems a bit frozen as well, assessing, and you wish to God that you had another shot of tequila right now to take your attention off of the way his brow creases slightly and mouth turns down. “You don’t want me,” he says finally with a shake of his head. 

You do. 

You really do.

“What’s wrong with you?” you ask, not liking his tone or the way he's still frowning slightly and can't meet your eyes.

He shakes his head again but steps forward to stand across the island from you. “I’m not going to psychoanalyze myself, but I gotta lotta shit. I don’t know if you could put up with two of us. And I'm not letting you throw me away for some guy who came after.”

You sit there quietly, taking in his words and trying to hear what he was saying. What he was really saying underneath and you don't like any of the deductions you're able to come up with. “Y/N?” he asks, tilting his head slightly, and you know you've been quiet too long right after he's been as vulnerable as he can be. 

“You know I don’t consider it putting up with you, Diego, right?” You ask, quietly. It’s important he knows. He has to know at least that. 

He gives an attempt at a smirk, but it doesn't make it to his eyes. “What else would you call dealing with my bullshit?”

You reach out to him, wiggling your fingers in an insistence that he take your hand. It takes a second, and some aggressive eye contact for him to take your hand, but when he does, you fold your hand over his, smoothing over the knuckles with your thumb. There’s scars there. Probably from his childhood. Or last week. “I’d call it returning the favor.” 

He snorts but doesn't take his hand away. Instead he squeezes your hand, and you know he'll never tell you that he loves you, but this feels pretty close. You squeeze his hand back.

[elenajones23]

Just sharing some thoughts/opinions  about The Umbrella Academy.(part 2)

I decided to share some of my thoughts and opinions on TUA S2 and S1,I know some of my opinions  /thoughts are very controversial and not popular but they’re also based on facts and some mistakes the writers have made this season. Here I go (if you don’t like any of opinions/thoughts then please kept for yourself/don’t read my post, I will not tolerate any hostility from anyone) (fair warning this post will be so freaking loooong so good on you if you read it all), it’s also going to be multiple posts as I have a lot to say.

Klaus:-

This might come to shock to some of you but I HATE Klaus, he was the least character that interested me last season, I only started liking him like by the end of S1 but I just HATE him completely in S2. Seriously Klaus was just a complete shit show this season, he basically became a version of Reginald in his own twisted way.

Let’s start with S1, now I do admit he had a lot of hilarious moments and as we learn more about him we learn that the reason behind his dedication is because of the trauma that he went through as a kid (his psycho father locking him up for 6 hours at a mausoleum when he was just 13 years old) it made him be afraid of his own powers, afraid of his own mind so I sympathized a lot with him because he was abused in such distributing manner.

It’s also clear from the fact that Cha- Cha & Hazel had such tough time breaking him that either Reginald has put them all through some kind of torture training or what Klaus goes through on a daily bases is a much worse torture than what Cha-Cha & Hazel were putting him through either way, Reginald fucked the kids, nevertheless he broke when they were getting  rid of his drugs which is understandable (though not really did he really think he would get the chance to actually take any of it later?) after that Eudora comes to his rescue and she saves him and rather than him warning her that there were two of them he just leaves her there looking for another score NOT caring for one second about her, literally all he had to say/whisper is that Hazel wasn’t alone or give her any kind of signal but all her cared about is getting more drugs and because of his selfishness Eudora died and he clearly couldn’t care less about her, he didn’t even show any signs of feeling guilty or anything honestly that was one of the MAIN reasons I stopped sympathizing with him and started to even hate him.

After he came back from traveling back in the past, it clearly affected him because he lost Dave, he tried to be sober so he could talk to Dave again and that’s when we finally got to see Klaus without all the BULLSHIT,  that’s when we finally got to see him be himself without the drugs (still haven’t forgiven him for Patch but I just went with the flow, there isn’t  much I can do about it, and he wasn’t 100% at blame, Cha-Cha is the one who killed her) and he was actually ok. In the episode before the finale his powers were strong enough that  Ben was able to hit him and even play patty-cake with Klaus (or whatever that game was) , in the finale klaus’s powers were strong enough that Ben was able to save Diego then later on strong enough to project him and even defeat all the gunmen.

So naturally I was excited because it meant that we would get to see more of Ben, Ben who can finally be heard, be touched and can touch  others, more of Ben FINALLY interacting with his other siblings, he would get to contribute to the conversations, he would get to hang out, hug and maybe even have fun with his siblings. Instead all we got is Klaus treating him like a prisoner/unpaid worker who uses him for his own desires whenever it’s convenient for him to get more famous and luxuries life for free, all the while ignoring Ben completely, taunting him of inability to do anything without him, calling him his ghost bitch, lying to all of their siblings that he was there, denying him any kind of interaction with his siblings. Klaus basically became a version of his father, isolating Ben from the rest of his family, belittling him, taunting him, mocking him, forcing him to things for him, ignoring him. abusing Ben’s ghost abilities for his own benefits.  

Klaus also acted like his father by lying & manipulating 1000+ of people(7 kids) by feeding BULLSHIT lies & manipulating them for THREE YEARS just because he was bored and it was fun for him to fuck with people’s minds to pass the time and get easy money & luxury god forbid he actually works a real job (until it was the right time to stop meet Dave)  and when he got  bored of them he just left them several times NOT caring for one second that he ruined 1000+ lives/futures of innocent people exactly like how Reginald fucked them up when they were kids then let them to their messy shit, just like he manipulated Luther for 4 YEARS just for the heck of it. Even when he “tried” to blow them off, he didn’t really try, he barley said anything, if he actually cared about them he would have used his stupid powers to scar them and make them leave him alone for good, give them their lives back but all he ever cares about is himself and only himself.

This just occurred to me, Klaus actually  FUCKED UP with timeline/history  the MOST,  it’s really a HUGE  miscalculation on the writers part that no one came after him to eliminate him because he FUCKED up history ROYALY for 3 YEARS yet NO one was sent by the commission to fix this HUGE ERROR in history  all of his followers defiantly had different impact on the original history  and yet he was just allowed to fuck up history, Luther, Diego, Allison, and Vanya had little or NO impact on history and yet they were targeted more than once.  The only explanation that makes sense is that Klaus is TUA fandom favorite character for some reason and they would let him get away with anything.

Here’s what I have got to say about Klaus & Dave this season, Klaus’s attempts were just creepy, he can’t just go up to  stranger teenager a man in his 30’s  and tell the teenager that he loves him just imagine how Dave felt this complete stranger knows everything about him and tells him that he loves, Dave for felt SCARED and very uncomfortable yet another adult telling him what to do or not d,  and Klaus kept on pressuring him,   NOT caring for one second how terrifying  & confusing this whole situation is for Dave, it was just yet another good person that Klaus disturbed his life for his own selfish reasons. It was also so very very very unfair of him pressuring/rushing a teenage kid in 60’s to accept his sexuality (telling him out loud in restaurant  in front of his homophobic uncle that he loves him) that just outing way way too much for a teenage kid, and because Klaus’s selfish action Dave ended up enlisting much earlier than he originally did thus by  butterfly effect logic Klaus technically shouldn’t know him because he fucked up Dave’s history and their history as well (so by all means by the end of S2, Klaus wouldn’t still have Dave’s dog tags) and even the butterfly effect skipped Klaus for  some reason(everything just seems to work out for Klaus so smoothly) Dave would never approach him if he saw him he would be too scared of Klaus.

  S02E10 just further proved how SELFISH Klaus is, right after Ben’s funeral he conjured him very easily and Klaus at that age still didn’t use drugs (at least not as heavily as he did later on in his life) he could have focused on his powers and strengthen his power  enough that the rest of their sibling could see & talk to him, Ben could have told them he never blamed any of them for his death, give them a peace o mind, instead Klaus just kept him a secret for himself for YEARS and NEVER once told them about Ben, the made them believe he’s talking to other ghost or just too high and seeing delusions , they were facing the freaking  apocalypse TWICE and he NEVER let Ben share any moments/spend a little o time with them because all he ever cares about is himself.

People are always made at his siblings for never believing him or checking on him when he acts too weird (like when Ben possessed him during the light supper est.….) the thing is by now they’re so used to his bullshit lies & manipulation that they always just think he’s just  lying and manipulating because he has done so many times over the years because of his addiction,   he “cried wolf” one too many times for any of them to take seriously or believe him, and considering what Klaus did to 1000+ of innocent people in 60’s it’s no wonder they don’t take him seriously. Yet they don’t recall the moments when Diego could tell Klaus was actually going through something and how he was there for him, or how Allison did the same or Klaus in S2. They’re always just quick to make it out as if his siblings don’t care about him when the fact is he cares very little about them because if he actually did he would have told them Ben was still with them for everyone’s sakes and they might have taken his light supper possession more  seriously because they would have known that Ben might have something to do why Klaus just all of sudden acted “too weird” it’s Klaus’s own fault that they didn’t question his “weird” because to them it’s seems just like good old acting up/acting weird just or attention.

The fandom loves blaming Luther for Vanya’s outrage (even though her own choices that led her to be isolated from her siblings even more and choosing to trust a stranger over them is why she went on said outrage) yet no one ever acknowledges Klaus’s role in the apocalypse in the first place, Harold/Leonard wouldn’t even stood a chance without that journal. Klaus is literally 50% responsible for Eudora’s death and for the first apocalypse.  

I was kind interested in seeing sober Klaus this season, that I would finally get to see the REAL Klaus and turns out the real Klaus is the biggest asshole (well one of the biggest asshole, the other one is Vanya) in his family, the real Klaus is literal version of Reginald with just with his own twist, and I honestly hate/can’t stand  shitty selfish manipulative assholes like him specially the ones who seem to be a “nice guy” but in fact is a complete asshole deep down.

 PS: his powers are 99.99% USELESS MOST OF THE TIME, I don’t get how he ever was part of the umbrella academy team, what exactly did he do? they didn’t even shows us in the flashback in S1E01 of him doing at all, even in Allison’s story to her daughter she said Klaus got distracted talking to a ghost.  Klaus SHOULD have DIED long time instead of Ben.

[meyerlansky]

okay so i’m binging the eps of tua s1 i didn’t get to yet all at once and then rolling right into s2 at 3am, get fuckin’ ready lads

“one of them is a woman, so don’t be so sexist” shouldn’t be hilarious but GOD it is

i can’t tell if diego’s “i need to find five” is out of concern for five or because he needs to get to the bottom of the attack on the mansion, but i will entertain the notion that diego likes five more than five likes diego. marginally more. diego’s five’s least favorite but five isn’t diego’s least favorite, and not just because luther exists

i like the leonard/allison scene with the keys a lot, actually, it does a lot of work to show just how clumsy a manipulator leonard is? he fools vanya really easily, but it’s not because he’s good at it, it’s because she’s desperate enough to want to be fooled. allison’s not only got more socializing experience [and more experience dealing with Guys Who Want Something, even if it’s not the something she thinks leonard wants at first] but also has actual academy training, so her suspicion of strangers is probably baseline way higher than vanya’s, and she’s way more capable of clocking leonard being... kind of shit at lying

FIVE TELEPORTING INTO CARS WITH HIS SEATBELT ALREADY FASTENED IS STILL BAFFLING AND ALSO HILARIOUS

god just. let luther be openly resentful of the rest of the team for leaving! it adds depth to his character! i juuust want the narrative to acknowledge that the mental image he has of himself as The Team Leader Who Always Makes The Best Choices For The Team is not at all accurate and he fucks up and hurts his siblings just as much as the rest of them do

interesting that ben apparently can’t see other ghosts unless klaus can? like how long has the dead babushka [and the rest of hazel and chacha’s victims] been there, but ben can only see her once klaus starts detoxing

“you gonna tell them it’s special chocolate?” it’s got. a ginormous pot leaf. right on the tinfoil. i think they know ben.

okay well hazel offering the chocolate to chacha in the lab and her just leaning over and biting it instead of using her hands is... a lot

the shingaling sequence is so fucking good, the screen splitting is so cool and such a good contrast to the rest of the show, i love it

anyway this is still possibly the best screencap i’ve ever taken, a. LOOK AT HIM GO, b. have i mentioned i hate his fucking knobbly little knees and his stupid fucking kneesocks god i hate him

vanya’s so happy allison asked her to get a drink she forgets all about grace being dead :(

why are patch and beeman the only two cops in the city. they’re at every crime scene

“your brother says hi” is so fucked up

also i would in fact like to know five’s reaction if he had gone to the van and seen that. which brother would he have thought it was? because i feel like klaus is the easy assumption and also the one [alive] brother that’d motivate him to do anything about it

the shot of diego and luther walking through the floors of the library is so good

like i’m just saying, diego AND vanya both talk about allison and luther’s relationship in a way that doesn’t indicate any disgust, which speaks to how they dooon’t really see each other as siblings the way Normal families do. taking cues from that isn’t the same as saying “adopted siblings in real life aren’t really siblings” or whatever other justification people use to give other fans shit. just. sayin’.

vanya just wants to be SEEN so badly. poor bb.

“is your brother here now?” /ben winks from the bed

such a little shit

klaus doesn’t say five won’t come for him, he says five doesn’t know he’s gone, and when they tell him they left him a message he doesn’t say five won’t care, THEY’RE CLOSE, OR THEY WERE CLOSE AS KIDS, I REST MY CASE.

you don’t say “come back with a warrant” and then leave a cop alone in the room with all the keys to your motel. it’s not a smart move, sir.

“she said it made me surly” you mean MORE surly, little knifecat bastard

i maintain the line would’ve been better if he said “i’m the FOURTH frickin’ horseman” not “i’m the four frickin’ horsemen.” you’re only one person, kiddo!

allison in her $700 designer leather jacket: we... are going to need... sweatpants!

the disgust on allison’s face at the card, she REALLY cannot fucking stand leonard, amazing

picking at hazel not loving the job is such a good move on klaus’ part and i can’t decide if it was an intuitive choice or if he listened to their bickering?

eudoraaaaaaaaaaaaa just waaaaaaaaaaait

how the fuck did chacha get behind her in the first place though

so if diego’s thrown knives at al before but al is still alive... does diego not aim to kill with his first throw as a rule?

ugh diego talking to eudora’s body is agonizing actually

[rachelannc]

Gilmore Girls (Credit: Warner Brothers).

Call me late to the game, but I have joined the world of Stars Hollow and fallen in love with the girls we know as the Gilmore Girls, twenty years after it first debuted, and I’m not even mad about it.

Mind you, I had no intention of binging or even finishing the entire show, but as I casually watched one episode on Netflix and found how easily-digestible it was, one episode turned into three, and then it turned into every other day, and then it became a nightly ritual and, well, you know how it goes.

So grew my uncanny obsession with mother-daughter Lorelai and Rory Gilmore’s witty banter, exceptionally close relationship and charming small town, that I became so invested in their world and was able to finish the show in the two months I have returned and been quarantined in my own little small town. (A surprise for me, as someone who hardly ever watches or keeps up with a show, let alone ever binged a show. Seven seasons? Where do I even start, I thought?!)

Twenty years ago, I was just a seven-year-old girl listening to Hilary Duff and the Backstreet Boys while watching teeny-bopper shows and everything on the Disney Channel. I never really got into soapy teen dramas until (obviously) later in my life when I became a proper teenager.

My first reaction to watching Gilmore Girls? Wow. This Rory girl seems a lot like me.

Rory, the shy and introverted goody two-shoes and bookworm who loves school and always hangs out with her single mother and lives and grows up in a small town where everyone knows each other and loves her; and me, a girl who grew up in a town called Pleasant Hill. And if those Chilton uniforms didn’t remind me more of my own private school uniform? Ha, well I don’t really know what to say.

But really, the resemblances are uncanny and watching the show made me think: What would have happened if I had watched this as a girl growing up? Would I have handled situations with boys differently or treasured my girl time and female friendships a whole lot more, if I had seen Rory and Lorelai grow up, interact, and handle regular growing pains alongside me, as well?

As a first-time viewer, the writing and pacing of the show immediately stuck out. It’s incredibly quick and entertaining, witty through and through. I appreciate all of Lorelai’s references to eighties pop culture and Rory finding refuge in classic literature and the strong female characters and feminists I had so long been inspired by, too.

Moreover, it was incredibly comforting to find another person I could see myself reflected in, onscreen, growing up and making mistakes and always trying to do the right thing, but still staying true to who she was all along.

Her experience was so similar to how my adolescence had felt and been: my mom, who had given me all I ever needed to grow up, and me, just wanting to do right by her, was always responsible and loved at school, receiving attention from boys but never really ever cared for it because I was just happy reading a book or playing my guitar, ha.

And if that scene between Dean and Jess getting into a fight over Rory at a party couldn’t feel even more familiar to my high school days — when I was caught in a love triangle with boys who confessed their feelings to me on the same night, pressured me to make a decision, only for me to see their friendships fall apart right in front of me at school. Wow, that was high school in a nutshell, ha! And it was funny to see moments like that played back onscreen, happening to Rory as she had wished for none of it to happen, yet couldn’t really do anything about these boys’ feelings for her at the same time. (I feel you girl.)

The fact Rory wants to travel and pursue journalism as well couldn’t hit it home for me any more. Her university days reminded me of my own writing articles and chasing stories for my school newspaper. And when her and Paris wanted to experience “all the college experiences,” embarking on a cliche spring break trip trying to do “spring break right,” I couldn’t help but giggle as I found myself in college as well, very well knowing I am not the party type, but decided to get “all the college experience” as well, embarking on a Vegas trip with friends which, I do have to say, was a hell of a time.

There are so many moments from the show that have stuck with me, but here are a few memorable thoughts and moments I’ve had:

When Rory said, “I cannot do this alone. I need my mommy and damn it, I don’t care who knows it!” (s3 e13) I think she was speaking for all of us.

“I don’t want to be that kind of girl. That kind of girl who just falls apart because she doesn’t have a boyfriend.” (s1 e17) Yup. Yup, yup Rory. That was me.

Lane and the Kims and their lifelong friendship was just charming, and I couldn’t help but feel for the Asian best friend and strict mom who means well.

Rory and Paris and their ongoing escapades. Man, you can’t help but love them. Their spring break trip was all too relatable: Rory drinking and drunk-calling Dean for the first time and them doing spring break even if they never want to do it again because they realize they just aren’t the partying type. “It’s a college memory. I intend on having as many college memories as possible.” (s4 e17) Yeah, all too relatable. Ha.

Also Paris being that one friend we all know who is a little too much, too bossy, too aggressive, can turn people off but is also one of our very best friends? It was also incredible to see how their “hatred” (and Paris seeming to pop up everywhere Rory was, lol) turned into a real friendship over the years. I loved seeing that.

Rory’s graduation speech: “My mother never gave me any idea that I couldn’t do whatever I wanted to do or be whomever I wanted to be. She filled our house with love and fun and books and music, unflagging in her efforts to give me role models from Jane Austen to Eudora Welty to Patti Smith. As she guided me through these incredible eighteen years, I don’t know if she ever realized that the person I most wanted to be was her.” (s3 e22) That was a moment that made me just cry and tear up, for being a grateful kid myself, but also feeling just how mushy Lorelai must have been feeling as a mother, raising a good kid, all on her own. Ugh. 😭

Oh, Dean and Jess. They represent the boys we all meet and fall in love with when we’re young: Dean, the dependable boyfriend who is ready to give you everything, support you, be there for you, and may always love you even when you might take him for granted; and Jess, the said “bad boy” and mysterious romantic who leaves you hanging onto every single word that makes you fall head over heels for him, even if you know it might be bad for you.

When Rory has sex for the first time (s4 e22): It was such a big, telling, and coming-of-age moment. And you could feel that. I could feel and know exactly how she was feeling: how excited she was, how dumb it was, how one’s feelings get the best of you even when you normally think every action through and make reasons to justify it. God. I was also afraid to see how the show would handle the situation, especially Lorelai. I’m glad she was never quite overbearing to Rory and trusts her and lets her grow as her own individual, but I’m glad she put her foot down and told her how it was not okay for her to sleep with Dean, who was still a married man. #greatmothermoment

When Rory drops out of Yale and takes some time for herself:

I couldn’t have felt more seen. Going back home, bored at home all over again, finding things to preoccupy myself with until I got bored of it and wanted to move on to the next thing, because I genuinely wanted to… that feels very familiar. And it was heartwarming to see her have this moment and want it for herself. I know it may have been a controversial choice for many, but Rory’s quitting school let her evaluate her own choices, have the space and time to figure herself out — who she was beyond what everyone expects her to be — only to realize that she really does want to be a journalist. Her whole life had been predetermined by her surroundings, and we see just how hard of a worker she is, that to have this “slip-up” is actually the best thing she can do for herself — she realizes she can be and is responsible for her own actions. To experience that in college, rather than many years later down the road, is admirable.

And moreover, I appreciate how Lorelai handled the situation. She never forced Rory to do anything or made her feel bad about her decision. Rather, she let Rory have the space and time to want to go back to Yale and school to be a journalist. She realizes that no one can make that decision for her, but her. And I loved that. Another #greatmothermoment.

Even more so, when Jess surprisingly came back and tells her he’s written a book and reminds her that “this isn’t you,” (s6 e8) that moment almost broke my heart. It reminded me of a time I felt so lost myself and a boy who once knew me would be tough on me, because he cared for me and knew who I was and always have been, and wanted me to do “better” because I was better… I think we’ve all had those people who know us very well who tell us hard truths about ourselves. And we don’t really want to listen, but a part of us knows that maybe they’re actually right. 💔

I actually really liked Logan and Rory’s relationship and the sense of trust and maturity they had built since that infamous “You Jump, I Jack” life-and-death brigade episode (s5 e7). Beyond that, Rory and Logan were completely smitten with each other the whole time. They came from worlds that were incredibly similar, yet wanted to be different. I appreciate how Logan knew and acknowledged his privilege and mistakes. I appreciate how Rory made herself clear that she is a “relationship kind of girl” instead of an “every girl” and gets a boy like Logan to stop his ways. (If I had to be honest, I was never that kind of girl, either.) When they said they’d “factor each other in,” they showed ultimate support for each other. And it’s clear that they were each other’s biggest fans. (When Logan took Rory, Lorelai and Luke out for a Valentine’s Day weekend getaway? Wow.) It’s clear they have a lot of chemistry and fun together. And Logan’s smile to Rory. Ugh.

On Lorelai:

I thought Lolelai and Jason were actually kind of cute. A part of me wanted it to work out, but I knew it never would.

Oh man, I had a fat crush on Max Medina too.

I loved seeing Chris and Lorelai stick by each other throughout all those years, and actually try to make it work. He’s a good guy who means well, and it’s clear how comfortable they are with each other, but timing was never on their side.

The letter Lorelai wrote to Luke’s defense to have custody over his daughter legit brought me to tears. Luke really was there for Lorelai and saw Rory grow up. You can’t ever take that back. Ever. Ugh.

What happened between Lorelai and Chris was bound to happen, and I was actually so happy for Lorelai to be with him. I’m incredibly impressed at how the show was able to show such a raw, real and complicated feeling of never really being “in love,” so well.

Emily and Richard: what a hoot of grandparents. I loved all their comic banter. All those Friday night dinners and the show they always put on. Richard’s relationship with Rory was so warm and comforting, and Emily’s incessant complaining and nitpicking was great. But when Emily actually had a moment towards the end explaining to Lorelai how Lorelai was able to be a single mother, independent and all on her own, while she herself has always been a wife, not knowing how to be independent, couldn’t be a more self-aware moment.

After all of this, it’s incredibly refreshing to see a show like Gilmore Girls let its characters be who they are: wholeheartedly immature and charming, unabashedly flawed yet real. And while these characters could be problematic — Lorelai is at times immature and inappropriate, yet means well; her relationship with Rory may be too codependent that Rory ends up dropping everything to tend to her mom; Rory is part of an elite society that comes from wealth and privilege; Emily constantly hates on the help; etc.

As much as the above is true, it’s still inspiring to see how Lorelai and Rory take on — and maybe even take down — their given worlds. They bicker and laugh, whine and moan, lust, laze around and criticize, but they are also incredibly real. Just as we humans can often be short-sighted in our lives, Rory and Lorelai are too. Too often we are given female characters who are either a saint or a sinner, a wife or a girlfriend, a prude or a prostitute, that with Rory and Lorelai, we get both. I think we all are at times a little annoying, yet incredibly fascinating the next. And that’s probably what has made the Gilmore Girls so beloved and such a cult-classic since its debut in 2000: Its heroines are flawed, yet deeply human, just like us all.

https://twitter.com/rachelannc/status/1295641850913501185?s=20

https://twitter.com/rachelannc/status/1292361621071790091

Thoughts I Had While Watching Seven Seasons of ‘Gilmore Girls’ for the First Time, Ever Call me late to the game, but I have joined the world of Stars Hollow and fallen in love with the girls we know as the 

[thesevenumbrellas]

Of Diego can curve anything and hit his target then he’s probably amazing at those carnival games with the rings or the balls. I bet Diego would win out the whole booth just to rub it in Luther’s face because that’s just the type of beautiful petty that he is. Too bad he’s probably never gotten to go to one

You just had to make it sad at the end didn't you.

He took Eudora to one while they were dating and won so many prizes for her they were kicked out for cheating. She thought it was hilarious.

[dgalerab]

even more thoughts on (post wuas) diego having a daughter a la this

he’s a sentimental dork and so he totally names her grace, but since narratively speaking that would be very hard for me to write, i (with help from @iguessyouregonnamissthepantyraid) have decided they all call her something different

diego calls her grace ann, first and middle name (at all times. someone asks him what he’s going to do when she’s in trouble and he’s like... grace ann hargreeves, like a liar, because he cannot admit that he never intends for her to be in trouble with him)

klaus calls her gracie

ben makes fun of diego by calling her mini-mom or little g or something for so long it sticks and he can’t go back because she won’t respond to anything else from him

luther probably has some sweet, obvious pet name for her like pumpkin

five probably calls her ann bc he’s always lowkey thought of their mom as grace and it’s just weird to have two of them

vanya calls her annie for similar reasons

allison calls her grace because she’s grown a lot more fond of calling their mother “mom” since she became a mom

grace also calls her grace bc for her there’s no confusion and she’s so happy to share her name with a baby girl

diego is so overprotective he injures himself several times trying to protect gracie from mild inconvenience. like full on “realizes she’s going to fall while he’s cooking so he drops a knife into his foot in his rush to catch her and eudora has to drive him to the emergency room and explain that yes, once again, he was so worried about their child he hurt himself”

REFUSES to let gracie get shots or any medical procedures with needles without him there. passes out every time. she is 100% fine with shots. all of them have offered to fill in for him and he’s like “NO SHE NEEDS HER DAD”

he lives in her room until she gets old enough to kick him out because WHAT IF SHE HAS NIGHTMARES

will always kiss any bandaid he puts on her and will give her a bandaid for any scratch, injury or pain, no questions asked

eventually he ends up that dad who tries to arrest the first kid that bullies her in school while eudora’s like “DIEGO YOU CANNOT ARREST A KINDERGARTNER” 

helen and vanya teach gracie violin really early and helen is the kind of mean where gracie finds it hilarious (”if you can’t get these progressions right by today we’re going to have to abandon you and you’ll be raised by wolves” type of thing) and will roast diego to her (while knowing full well that what she says won’t make gracie any less wildly fond of her dad it’s just going to mess with diego) and he dives in to cover her ears like “STOP TURNING MY LITTLE GIRL AGAINST ME”

i said if i named her i’d get invested and i am very invested

[maevelin]

Episode 1x04

1. Poor Luther. His dad did quite a number on him didn’t he? In and out.

“That’s what leaders do”

And he sees now himself as the leader and it couldn’t be more messed up. He has idolized that piece of shit he had for a father. And on the other hand he tries so hard but he is not ‘leader’ material himself and even if he has the chance to ever become that it won’t happen if he models himself and his ideals after his father.

He even told his father to not call him one but he stills refers to him as the number one but I don’t think that ever had any importance to his father anyway. It is not something to take pride upon or showed any worth. And even the reason he told his father to not call him one was all wrong. At some time he will need to step out of his father’s shadow and find his own self but until then...well...most of the things Diego told him are right. 

2. KLAUS! 

MY SON! MY BABY! OMG!

Not only this is brutal...despite the way he is taking in everything but the fact that he believes and he knows and it is true that no one will be worrying about him, no one will notice that he is gone...The academy was hit by psychopath killers and no one even thought to check on Klaus just in case. 

I CAN’T! ALRIGHT! I JUST CAN’T!

Even Eudora finding him...she was after the wrong brother because Diego was searching for Five. 

And all his trauma!

But Klaus is also one smart resilient cookie while at the same time he is so broken and messed up.

STOP HURTING HIM! STOP! 

And his torturers calling him a freak because he does not respond to torture as they want and then they go full force with it... I HOPE THEY DIE SLOWLY BY TORTURE!

And those flashbacks! And all that triggering! And the reason he wants to be high all the time...No no no just no! What his father did to him was inhuman! SHIT! 

The fact that the one he’s got is Ben and that is because his brother is dead...is truly heartbreaking. And Ben seeing him wasting his life while he is stuck and Klaus feeling that guilt too and knowing that he has Ben because of his gift otherwise he wouldn’t. This is just...

And all those dead people...I am amazed that despite how this has affected him and with the treatment he has suffered he hasn’t completely lost his mind.

Also speaking of the dead...

I am so glad his father is dead! If only they could bring him back just to kill him over and over again and torture him and throw him straight to hell I would truly appreciate it. Thanks. May his ashes rot.

3. I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN! SHIT I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN! The second I whisper out to the universe that I ship something this shit happens! 

And just after what Diego did to his mom. And while he kept it all for himself. He only opened up to Eudora.

“For once try things my way”

And she tried...once...

Diego and Eurora! Why? Whyyyy?

And that song when he found her...the way he found her...

And Diego wanted to stop Hazel and Cha Cha before they took another life...and a part of him was happy Eudora wanted his help...for them to team up...at last...only to get there too late...way too late...

“I was on my way...why didn’t you wait...”

4. Vanya’s guy is a total creep on another level and Vanya has been conditioned and treated to feel and believe she is worthless so of course the first one to treat her half decently and is like getting a free invitation in her life while she should be getting neon flashing alert vibes from him yelling danger! 

And he threw away her pills. That’s not good.

5. Drunk five was hilarious! Despite the reason he became drunk in the first place! And him holding on to Dolores waiting for the world to end unable to stop it! Sigh. 

6. I need Allison to find some personality though. I feel she is the most forgettable out of the bunch and with her ability she should have been one of the most interesting.

The incest thing with her and Luther though...big yikes.

Generally speaking though...is there ANYONE from the siblings their father hasn’t screwed up, twisted, and traumatized emotional and psychologically? No? No...Everything begin and end with his abusive parenting. Damn.

7. There are parts of Hazel I like...I really do...but so far he is in my black freaking list for daring to hurt Klaus like that! 

Cha cha on the other hand has no charisma aside being a sadistic bitch! When does she die again?

P.s: 

- Klaus’ special chocolates were awesome LMAO! Come on idiots! It was in the wrapping HA HA HA

- Klaus in the bus LMAO

- That briefcase Klaus stole (because of course LOL)....he traveled through time didn’t he? Hazel had said that Five’s side effects from the timetravel were caused because he didn’t have the suitcase. Klaus could have gone anywhere....anywhen.

[rappaccini]

umbrella academy talk:

so i started off knowing, purely from vague knowledge of the comics:

in this dysfunctional superhero family, none are biologically related. 

allison/luther and vanya/diego are A Thing. 

number five cannot age.

of the family, one is powerless, one is dead, one becomes a supervillain. i was not aware two of these overlap.

so this show was pitched to me as: what would happen if x-men, the haunting of hill house, watchmen, sky high, mcr’s discography and some bath salts were tossed in a filthy blender and ground together.

so naturally, i knew this was gonna be my shit.

spoilers and shipping discourse below cut.

during my first watch

i loved all the characters.

their flaws might turn some people off, but i think that adds to their appeal.

that being said, i like vanya and five the most. 

i went through a rollercoaster of ship acceptance with allison/luther. hoo boy.

i initially thought ben had gone full evil at some point in the past and the academy had to put him down. 

and then we see that he’s a ray of fucking sunshine and i was like, oh, yup, this boy wouldn’t hurt anyone willingly.

i initially thought vanya was genuinely powerless, and that she was going to save the day by being the team normal who keeps everyone else in check.

and then we see her brain light up during harcreep’s night session, and i’m like, oh yup she has powers.

and then i got spoiled, and i was like, oh YUP, she has powers.

i was convinced that five and vanya’s relationship was going to end up being the most important. like those scenes with them in eps 1 and 2 had me on the edge of my seat like ‘hold the fuck up are they Going There?’

(they were not, in fact, Going There.)

((then aidan gallagher snapped and beheaded some antis on twitter, which aside from being fucking hilarious to behold means that, uh... i guess they could Go There?))

(((please, Go There)))

i’d seen a few panels of five shooting vanya from the comics, and i was convinced the show was leading towards that moment, with one big deviation: he doesn’t shoot.

as much as i like that allison got to gun so hard for vanya, and to be the one to stop her, i still think five should’ve been the one with the gun in the end. 

allison’s arc already kinda concluded, and it ended with her on vanya’s side, so there was a lot less tension when she held the gun to v’s head.

i was like, yup, okay, so, she’s gonna find a loophole. no way is vanya in danger.

it’d be a more satisfying finish to his s1 arc, and resolve the huge question around their relationship. both are still kind of hanging there, not quite answered. they really need to be.

after watching

all the characters are great in their own ways.

the arc execution is as follows:

luther: slam dunk. great work!

five and vanya: almost made the basket, but dropped right before it hit the rim. entirely because five didn’t get to hold the gun on vanya.

klaus: a solid basket, but unnecessary to the a-plot of the story, so it can’t be any higher than this. 

ben: didn’t even throw the ball. he’s a flat character this season, but his being here at all was such a genuine surprise that i’ll tolerate it for now.

allison: dropped. you dropped the ball. and watched it bounce away. ‘but i need to be with my daughter but wait actually i’m gonna stay but vanya you’re an idiot but vanya i actually love you and want to be a Good Sister to you.’

diego: yeeted in the wrong direction. ~see the good in people~

eudora’s death was okay? like, i didn’t love it, but i didn’t hate it.

i think everyone in the cast is great, but ellen page is the weak link. not because she doesn’t perform well-- really, she’s fantastic-- but because she’s of a much higher profile than everyone else, and probably also bc of some of the wardrobe choices, while all the other actors completely transform into their characters, i’m always very aware i’m watching page-playing-vanya, rather than vanya herself. i’m left feeling like... another actress who’s lesser-known could’ve made a much bigger impact that avoids that messiness of actor-character muddling.

i’m fine with diego’s powerset changing. it’s simpler.

i’m fucking relieved diego and vanya aren’t a thing. in the comics, i gave it a pass, but in the show they have no chemistry. like i definitely see some promise in the concept of them as a couple, but in execution i just see no spark there. glad they didn’t force it. but if they do go that route in the future....... fine.

number five is definitely going to age if we get any more seasons. 

like, kids go through puberty at supersonic speed, and it takes a long time to film and edit a tv season. 

make your old-man-in-a-kids-body jokes now because the boy’s gonna grow up again, and he’ll grow quickly. 

here’s to hoping the show’ll be around long enough for that to even be a possibility.

i think that allison’s attempt to reconcile with vanya needed a bit more to it.

a few more instances of her being shitty in the beginning of the show, rather than ricocheting back and forth between ‘vanya i love you’ and ‘wow vanya, you’re not a part of our family’

or at least some acknowledgement that she’s fickle as hell at first.

a flashback or two showing how kid allison treated her.

also, klaus and diego gave up on getting vanya out of the basement too fucking quickly.

allison, i get. she tried to get past luther, and she has a fresh injury.

but k and d just... walk away?

that says a lot. 

yeah so. they needed a shot or two of diego and klaus showing some visible doubt before ditching.

.................... and ben? what did he think? 

ok fandom salt time:

yeah, luther drank a lot of Dumb Bitch Juice but he’s a good person trying to do good, just in a very confused way. 

so is diego.

allison’s turnaround as a person happened recently. 

up until the birth of her daughter she was an asshole through and through. up until a year ago, she was using her powers for everything. it seems like people have forgotten that.

it’s very important that she’s taking steps to improve as a person, but it’s very important to acknowledge what she’s changing from. if you don’t, you miss out on why her efforts to improve as a person matter so much.

the jokes about five being totally down to murder are funny, but... he isn’t? he’s just internalized that it’s a necessary part of life. he doesn’t really take pleasure in it, and he’s horrified. he’s convinced that what he’s done has isolated him from everyone forever. 

klaus is an awesome character, but not everything’s about him.

look, klaus never talks with vanya once during the season. he sits next to her on the couch, but up until he starts showing concern for her late in the game after they find harold dead, he doesn’t reference her at all, or seek her out. i get that he’s the fandom favorite, and people want them to interact, but they haven’t up until this point. he ignored her, like almost everyone else. they weren’t close. before the end of the season even LUTHER gave vanya more positive attention than klaus did.

i get why everyone thinks vanya’s gay, but i don’t. in general, i also don’t think we should decide so strongly on characters’ sexual orientations when canon hasn’t made it clear. it sets us up for disappointment that we really only have ourselves to blame for, because we created those false expectations in the first place.

in my head, she’s straight or bi. 

it hurts more if her feelings for leonard aren’t compulsory heterosexuality, but genuine attraction.  

we all hate vanya’s relationship with leonard and for good reason. but slapping compulsory heterosexuality on top of ALL that takes away so much of vanya’s agency.

rather than ‘she felt pressured to Date A Man so she threw herself at him and pretended she loved him to suppress her true sexuality’ i feel like the show was going with ‘she felt pressured to Date A Man, when one gave her positive attention she just fell head over heels because she’s barely ever had that’

like... you guys SAW vanya jump on top of him right? she WANTED that creeperdick. just because you don’t like that she wanted it, doesn’t mean that she didn’t want it.

in my head, an actor’s sexuality =/= their character’s sexuality.

correlaton =/= causation. 

look. ellen page is an Elder Lesbian. but given that we have NO indication that vanya’s gay, if a straight actress were playing vanya, would you still think of her as Only Gay?

(the answer is no)

... actors. play. parts. they are not their characters. their characters are not them.

(@the teen fans swarming aidan gallagher’s social media)

just because vanya dresses a certain way doesn’t prove she’s gay. plenty of women dress androgynously. sure, she could be. but she also could not be.

as an ex-catholic school kid, let me tell you, vanya might be averse to wearing skirts and dresses because she was literally forced to throughout her entire childhood.

also, vanya getting a girlfriend isn’t going to magically solve all her problems, guys.  

also, when everyone says the hargreeves boys all uniformly treated vanya like shit... no.

diego was openly antagonistic, but he also worried about her safety. yeah, he’s pissed about the book, but he doesn’t want her hurt.

luther was detached, but never aggressive, until the woman he loves nearly died. and then, even though everything he did afterwards was, uh, bad, he was afraid and desperate and trying to do what he thought was best.

klaus and ben just didn’t fucking pay attention to her. at all. but they did so because they were dealing with their own shit.

five gave it an honest effort at first, and then just didn’t interact with her at all post-ep 2. he didn’t exclude or turn on her out of malice. it was because he saw no other choice.

diego and luther were really only the ones competing for the alpha male slot. ben and klaus didn’t care, and five’s investment in controlling the team had more to do with pragmatism than it did gratifying his masculinity.

the incest discourse: see below.

spoiler alert: i’m totally down for the ships.

in general: this is a show about a bunch of dysfunctional, damaged, emotionally-stunted idiots. of course they’re going to do Problematic™ things. of course their relationships are going to be fucked up. of course they’re going to be nonconventional. 

you don’t have to like them. but you gotta acknowledge that this is what you’re in for.

real talk: all the hargreeves kids were harmed in different ways. we can argue a lot about who suffered the most, but ultimately, it doesn’t matter. everyone was trapped in their own personal hell as children, and then they dug themselves even deeper into it as adults.

real talk: dolores is a hunk of plastic. all the emotional support she gave five was created by his imagination to keep him from going insane. 

she’s the physical manifestation of his attachment to the apocalypse. 

it is a GOOD THING that he left her behind with a note of finality, because that scene shows him break free of his ‘addiction’ to the apocalypse, and reaffirm his commitment to his family.

ship five/delores all you want, but you’re kidding yourself if you think it’s healthy. or that it’s a genuinely good thing if he ‘ends up with her’

(real talk: number five was a teenage boy in the apocalypse. we all know what he was doing with that mannequin and we’re all afraid to say it.)

real talk: five should’ve been the one to pull the gun on vanya.

they’re the characters driving the plot of s1 forwards. he’s trying to stop the apocalypse, and she’s the cause of it. that sets them on a collision course. and in the show, they don’t collide in a way that doesn’t feel like an afterthought. 

again, Something’s Up with five and vanya. look at their interactions before shit hits the fan, and the way the story does backflips to keep them apart after episode 2.

their interactions scream ‘this is important. pay attention to this.’

the sudden absence of them screams ‘oh you just fucking wait for them to be together again’

the fact that we don’t get any resolution to that bugs me

... like, where the fuck did that go in eps 9/10? 

five’s big narrative crux is his obsession with stopping the apocalypse at any cost.

funnily enough, his constant ditching of his siblings (vanya most of all) to pursue this does the most to directly cause the apocalypse.

like... yeah we like to say that luther caused it with the basement nonsense.

but if you think about it, it was mostly five.

(though, yes, all the hargreeves fam contributed to the apocalypse. reg set it in motion, but each of the kids contributed to it. the apocalypse could’ve been stopped so many times by each of the characters. but they didn’t. and five’s missed opportunities are up there as among [if not] the most numerous.)

in a small way, his letting go of dolores resolves his obsession, but that resolution needed to be larger, what with how much he drives the plot forwards.

so: he arrives to the fight late, still in a bit of denial about what exactly vanya is doing, and what will be required to stop her.

let’s see him interact with allison about this. the two kids who had the biggest impact on her and her isolation, realizing what has to be done to salvage the situation. 

allison’s been there. she’s reached the conclusion. 

five hasn’t.

we could make this a callback to that shot of her calling vanya, concerned, with him in the background. that felt important. and it just... wasn’t?

he faces the combination of the consequences of his ‘whatever it takes’ attitude and his disappearance: the cost of stopping the apocalypse is killing the person he cared the most about, and still could.

he decides otherwise.

he shoots past her, same as allison did, because he loves her too much to kill her. 

... anyway. that didn’t happen.

i went from dreading the sibling shipping to being totally down for all of them.

idk if hazel, agnes or cha-cha will be back or not. i’d be fine with either.

the handler better stay fuckin’ dead.

i have no idea where the hell this show is headed and i’m at peace with it. all that matters is that the characters are done well.

but i do have some concerns re: ‘fixing the past.’

in general, i usually hate this kind of storyline, because it erases everything that already happened. i prefer stories where people learn to cope with the shit they did and that’s been done to them, and find a way to move forward.

that being said i’m along for this ride wherever the fuck it leads as long as the characters stay intact.

my running theories

ben committed suicide.

look: that plaque on his statue says some worrying shit. 

he’s always struggled so much with his power and what he has to do with it.

he’s so insistent on klaus getting his shit together and living. it feels personal. 

his ghost is unmarked, and he’s wearing a hoodie. he didn’t die on a mission. 

my money’s on: he overdosed on some of klaus’s drugs, or let the monsters tear him apart.

the handler and five had a creepy fucking thing going on when he was working for her at the commission. either something happened or she was pushing for it to happen.

five and vanya were going the allison/luther route when they were kids. 

they weren’t there yet, but they were sure as fuck heading down that road, and would’ve gotten there if five hadn’t dipped out into the apocalypse. 

feelings were budding, but they went unrealized and unresolved. they’re still kind of hanging there in the present, hence that odd charge in their interactions. 

there shouldn’t be a pair of twins among the siblings like there were in the comics. that added nothing. but hey, you wanna do it? cool. five and luther can have great interactions.

hazel is one of the 36 kids not adopted by hargreeves. like the dude’s weirdly durable. something’s up there, and we need to learn about what happened to the others. even if they did just all die/never develop powers. 

the kids’ nicknames (spaceboy, rumor, seance...) are canon in the show because they’re written on the fans’ posters. but they’re never referred to as such, by any of the kids or their merchandise.

my thought process: their fans gave them those names. they’re nicknames, not titles. like the kind you give your favorite celebrity.

hence why five doesn’t really have one: 

they made their debut around 11-12, and he left at 13.

ergo, he vanished before the fans came up with one for him. 

the kids’ interactions with each other fell into pretty general camps, due to the isolation they all experienced:

everyone followed luther’s lead, to varying levels of enthusiasm

diego lashed out at everyone. i’d say, vanya and luther especially, as the definitive top- and bottom-ranked members of the group. his standing was uncertain, so he went after the givens.

allison demanded everyone’s attention. she got it, willingly or otherwise.

klaus was amicable-ish with everyone, but reserved enough to detach from them entirely without much struggle when he fell further into addiction.

five bothered everyone: he was willful and proud, causing issues with 1, 2, and 3, and he reveled in his power, stirring resentment in 4/6.

before he died, ben was friendly with everyone. probably overcompensating due to the nature of his power.

vanya tried to be close to everyone. she failed. again and again, until she gave up entirely around the time ben died. 

to cope with all the bullshit, the kids developed these very codependent relationships, in which they latched on tight to the other person, created a place of safety, and buried all their emotions. 

yes, they’re fucked, but there’s a core of altruism to them. a sense that, if the situation were different, they’d be so good for each other. 

they still could be.

said relationships:

luther and allison, as the ones with the most secure positions within the family as The Leader and Dad’s Unofficial Favorite, but also smothered in expectations.

both under a lot of pressure to keep the rest of the group in check, and to control their powers. both desperate for attention and affection.

ben and klaus, as the ones who are actively reluctant to involve themselves in anything. 

both deeply unsettled by their powers, and at a complete loss as to how they can handle it. both desperate for a way out.

diego, who drifted between the status of 1/3 (’we want to fit in and we will’), and 4/6 (’we don’t fit and we know it’).

vanya and five. the one reg made clear to everyone doesn’t belong, with the one who rebelled the most, who’d give the least amount of fucks about reg’s separation policy, and probably reject it out of spite.

both hungry for recognition, and completely unable to get it. both targets of reg’s anger. 

the shipping discourse™

yes, adopted siblings and step-siblings are siblings. that is not in dispute.

but this is fiction. none of these characters are real. none of their actions are real. 

and because this is fiction, we pay attention to context and to story before we discuss the ethics of these relationships.

the relationship’s impact on character development, theme and story matters more than whether it’s Good And Healthy or not.

context: this is a family that never should have been a family. 

not because they’re not biologically related. 

they were adopted, yes, but they were adopted as an excuse for harcreep to have them all under one roof. not because he wanted them to be a family. 

they were not raised as siblings. they were raised to be some unholy child soldier/child star/kid superhero hybrids, in a situation that vaguely resembles a coed boarding school. 

they call each other ‘brother’ and ‘sister’ but that’s because they have no concept as to what brothers and sisters actually are to each other.

they call hargreeves ‘dad’ and grace ‘mom’ for similar reasons: comfort. searching for a sense of normality, even though it isn’t there, nor should it be. 

they weren’t raised as a family, or even as children. they were raised to compete with each other, to keep from challenging their ‘father’. they were raised to be emotionless weapons, only able to work together when hargreeves demanded it. 

case in point: hargreeves’ issue with luther and allison’s date wasn’t that they were on a date. it was that they were having fun at all.

i don’t think they realize any of this yet.

story: these are a bunch of deeply damaged people who can only really relate to each other, because no one else could come close to understanding them, after what they’ve been through. if they’re going to get better, they’ll have to do so together.

there is no way for them to function as a conventional ‘family’ 

they can try, and for the sake of story, they should try, but they should fail. too much has happened for them to make that work.

but there’s a genuine sense of understanding between them, under all those layers of dysfunction, that draws them all back together again. 

they can’t be a conventional family, so what are they, then? what can they do for each other? what is this show about?

 hopefully, it’s about these fucked-up idiots coming to terms with how fucked-up they are, and finding a way to move forward in a positive direction.

logically speaking, part of that is going to be forming bonds with people who understand them.

some of those bonds are going to be romantic. because look, romantic relationships are a part of life for the majority of people.

if they were simply disinterested in romance, cool.

but the thing is: the hargreeves’ shit track record with this kind of relationship doesn’t come from disinterest. it comes from being physically and mentally incapable of forming stable, healthy bonds with real people. it’s not that they don’t want to; it’s that they genuinely can’t.

luther has never been with anyone, apart from allison, because he’s always been devoted to being number one. add onto that his aped out body, and the insecurity he feels due to it.

diego has eudora, but they fall apart, because of his vigilantism and attitude problem. and then she dies.

allison shapes patrick into her husband, because she doesn’t know how to form a real relationship. the only one she ever had was with luther.

klaus can’t make anything last, because he’s chasing his next high. and then, he finds one that does, and it ends in death.

five invested all his emotions into a passionate relationship with a piece of plastic, because there’s no one in the world for him to care about. and then, he’s back in his teenage body, which is a whole other kind of isolation. he’s a grown man who now can’t do anything a grown man does.

ben is dead. as far as we know, he never had the chance, and he never will.

vanya has been overlooked by everyone in favor of her family, and is sedated, so any emotion she would feel is watered down. when she does find someone who seems to care for her, she throws herself into it because she’s desperate for any kind of affection she can get, and it ends in disaster.

part of their healing is going to involve taking steps to bridge this gap. 

and after everything, they need someone who can understand them.

at this point, all they have is each other. they’re it. 

... and purely from a realistic perspective this is a BIG cast for a tv show. how many love interests can they realistically fit in without overcrowding things?

the answer is next to none. 

maybe we’ll see eudora and dave or even patrick again, but it doesn’t seem likely. and honestly... those relationships had next to 0 development.

maybe we’ll get new love interests, but we really shouldn’t. it’s just more time-effective to keep any relationships between the characters we’ve established and developed. 

look... if these kids are getting shipped, it’ll only work if it’s with each other.

allison/luther grew on me. i went from a hardline ‘nope’ to ‘oh that’s fucking sad, but it’s still fucked’ to ‘OH that’s fucking SAD’ to ‘okay that’s sweet’ to ‘wait this is genuine there’s no fuckery here they just love each other’ to ‘fuck it i’m rooting for this team i want them to win it all’

their affection for each other comes from a place of sincerity. they have a long way to go before they’re remotely healthy, but they both want to get there. i hope they do.

i now see why people are rooting for diego/klaus. they’ve got a solid bond, their personalities have an interesting contrast, they can balance each other’s worst impulses out pretty well, and they both know what it’s like to love and lose someone. if ben comes back to life, make that a threesome, but until then he can third wheel. provide a running commentary.

i’m so content with these three? like i don’t mind at all who they end up with. i’m totally down for kliego, horrance, benkliego, or even diego and eudora or grace. 

if you’ve come this far, you know that i ship five/vanya too. i’m gonna write a novel in bulletpoints to justify it because i know how you all love jumping to conclusions.

in eps 1 and 2, we get these weirdly tender interactions. five does not talk to her the way he talks to everyone else. there’s a reason for that.

in the past:

he considers her opinion after reg’s. he goes, but the fact that he looks to her at all is huge, given how little he cares about the others’ input at any other point in the series.

thanks to some tumblr geniuses, it’s canon that vanya discusses him being her only confidante in her book.

her book is his only link to the past, and he carries it with him everywhere. 

he liked it, and tells her as much.

hers is the first name he calls in the apocalypse, and given that everyone must have been close to ben in some capacity for his death to hurt that much, she’s his favorite. by far.

and of course we have vanya leaving the sandwiches and the lights on. she kept waiting for him. that says a lot.

in the present:

he reassures her when she worries about the family hating her.

she’s the first one he confides in, after the griddy’s shootout. instead of going back to the academy, he goes and finds her. 

he peels back the tough exterior and lets her take care of him when he’s hurt; compare this to when he’s shot later on. 

he never insults her once. everyone else, he tears into, but the most he does is say she isn’t equipped to handle his situation. which, she isn’t.

and then he apologizes to her about it.

she goes back to the academy just to look for him after he leaves. 

vanya never has a negative flashback of being rejected by him when she goes full white violin.

his absence is what matters.

because five fucked off into the apocalypse, he left her alone, not long after the academy went public.  

aka, right when that rift between vanya and the others cracked wide open.

aka, right when it mattered the most.

the implications of them being a pair in the past, and what they mean for them in the present:

they were each other’s safe place within the academy. and then, after he left, it was gone.

vanya waited for him to come home, but eventually had to put it to rest, so she could handle being alone in the shithouse. she had to find a way to cope with being normal, so she put her faith in normalcy.

five spent decades in the apocalypse, and then years with the commission: to him, there is no safety anymore.

add to that: because vanya isn’t trained/powerful (to their knowledge), she’s in danger if he’s with her because he’s being hunted, and she’s in danger without him because of the apocalypse. it’s safer for the both of them for him to cut things off quickly and focus on saving the world.

his dismissal of vanya in the final act isn’t because he doesn’t care about her. he straight-up tells diego otherwise. it’s because he’s shut off his emotions, and he’s focused on saving the world at any cost.

and even then, he’s the first to insist on bringing her with them.

like, the kid grew up living in the consequences of her power. he’s her biggest victim, and as soon as she’s no longer an immediate threat, he’s like, nope, it’s non-negotiable: we’re saving her.

and then... the show backseats their dynamic completely. after a point, it feels like the story’s jumping through hoops to keep them from interacting again. every time the family’s about to bring up/run into vanya, he’s gone. every time he’s about to have a moment with her, it’s interrupted. 

after he apologizes to her about how he treated her the night he returned, and goes to follow her, klaus distracts him.

why? maybe five would have apologized  to vanya. maybe she’d have come along for the meritech ride, and missed meeting leonard.

he never meets leonard, unlike the rest of the family. even when the day resets, it does so right after he and vanya leave.

why? he’d have seen right through him.

he never gets a chance to linger on the harold jenkins investigation, because he’s bleeding out.

why? he’d have likely come to the same conclusion as allison.

he never hears diego and klaus discuss vanya’s whereabouts after they find harold dead. pops out right as they start talking about it.

why? he’d go looking. probably pop by her apartment and run into her breaking down. 

he’s gone when she comes back to the academy, and is locked away by luther.

why? he’d have helped her.

simply put: one or two of these instances is nothing to wonder about. all of them together, again and again and again? says something. implies something.

simply put: this is how you avoid a narrative bomb. if a crucial event must happen, but an essential character wouldn’t allow it, and is capable of stopping it (and you can’t or won’t change one or both of those things to fix that problem), you move that character away from the action until the event comes to pass. 

simply put: if five and vanya were able to have a fucking conversation, everything would have been fine.

irony is king: five, the guy who rejects vanya and is constantly on the move trying to stop the apocalypse, allows it to happen by doing just that.

essentially: they were the epitome of Relationship Hurtling Towards Something™ before five left.

and then they grew up, apart, and in such difficult circumstances without each other for emotional support. they became damaged people who suppressed their emotions to function. they mourned each other incompletely, but tried to move on.

and then they reunite. even though they’ve expected this to happen at some point, they... have no idea what to do.

vanya’s spent a lifetime doubting herself, and internalizing that her siblings don’t care about her. that’s going to land on five too. he may not have treated her like the rest, but his disappearance, intentional or not, left her alone, without an ally, and made her alienation from the family total. that plus her low self-esteem set her on the path that lead to jenkins. 

five’s mentally 58, stuck in his 13-year-old body, interacting with his 29-year-old siblings/ teammates/ schoolmates/ whatever the fuck they are to each other. he’s being hunted by hitmen and has been totally shaped by the apocalypse vanya created. it’s been a long time since he’s been anything but pragmatic and he can’t afford to start now. he doesn’t have the mental fortitude or the time to be around her, because she’s the connection to the soft side he had to kill, and the safe place he hasn’t had in decades.

i was totally down for this being a delicious fucking tragedy about two people who’re perfect for each other, and missed the chance to be together, what with their biological ages being incompatible.

because uh, ‘mentally 58′ or not the dude’s physically 13 again, and he’s being played by an underage actor.

going any further than ‘we were into each other when we were kids but shit’s too complicated to do anything about it now’ would take you on a one-way trip to yikesville.

but if at any point they end up being the same biological age again, because fuck if i know how time travel age fuckery works, it might be back on the table. 

like it’s the umbrella academy anything goes at this point.

and yeah uh if the characters are both adults or both kids at any point within the bounds of the show, i’m fully on board. i need more of these two, however it turns out. 

but i’d be shitting myself if i said i didn’t have a preference: all these kids have been through so much. they deserve happiness, however it is they get it. 

and as much as i like to say i’m totally fine if they keep it platonic... it would also really bug me if either of them end up with anyone else.

so that being said:

nightmare ending: grown-ass vanya and 13yo five Go For It. yikesville here we come. (this won’t happen)

hell ending: they retcon Whatever The Fuck Is Going On with vanya and five, and he becomes just as dismissive as everyone else. which, fuck that.

bad ending: the vibe continues, but it never gets acknowledged at all. which, well. at least it’s there.

sad ending: they acknowledge they had feelings in the past, but that they missed their chance, and have to move on in a platonic direction. which, oof. (and also... sure bitch. sure you’re not gonna go for each other the seconds the credits on the tua series finale roll)

good ending: the feelings are acknowledged as still very much present, and they don’t act on them because of age fuckery. which, oooof.

perfect world ending: the feelings are acknowledged as still very present, and at some point down the line, be it episodes or seasons in the future, the age fuckery is solved and they can finally resolve things. or, they end on a note of ‘well, we’ll just wait it out and see what happens’ that implies that they’ll get together in the future.

basically these kids are a fucking emotionally stunted mess and i love all of them. 

i sure as hell get why people are bothered by shipping them, but to each their own. 

but... look. it’s the umbrella academy. if you don’t like pseudo-incest, cool. but you gotta accept that it’s A Thing That Happens in the show and in the comics. you now know what you’re getting into. strap in or hop out, the ride’s going regardless. 

again: this is a show about dysfunctional, fucked-up, emotionally stunted idiots. 

sure, they could have healthy, socially acceptable relationships.

but are you really shocked if they don’t?

... if you are, dude. i hate to say it, but you haven’t been paying attention.

interpret things how you want, but if you deny a very central aspect of the show, you’re setting yourself up for more and more disappointment and outrage.

you can disavow it in fanon, but you gotta acknowledge the canon.

and don’t attack people for their ships jesus fucking christ it’s a tv show.

[keyorsomething]

►єυ∂ιєgσ яαит

✿Hello everyone!✿

Today, I'm going to simply be ranting about my thoughts on Eudora's character, and the ship between her and Diego.

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Warning! This will contain spoilers for any episodes past number three, and will discuss some serious and rather touchy topics. Reader discretion is advised.

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►1. єυ∂σяα'ѕ ¢нιℓ∂нσσ∂ (domestic violence trigger warning.)

!!!THIS IS JUST HEADCANON. DON'T ATTACK ME FOR MY WEIRD ASS HEADCANONS!!!

Eudora spent a lot of her younger years in a violent situation. She grew up in the ghetto of the city, and took up martial arts when she was young to learn to better defend herself. Her father abused her mother often, and her grandfather was the main reason she grew up to be as functional as she's shown to be.

Most children who grow up around intimate partner violence (IPV) have a lot of issues. She was lucky enough to have a grandfather who kept the violence as far away from her as possible. When she was eight years old, her mother was nearly murdered by her father, causing her grandfather to call the police. They were helped out of the situation, and Eudora's father was sentenced to 38 years in prison. She dreads the day that might come- where he lives long enough to get out of where he belongs.

Often times, children are distrustful of their female caretakers who were victims of IPV. They don't believe that the victim will care for them, causing independence to be forced at a young age, even after escaping the abuse. I believe that Eudora likely loved her mother a lot- but never fully trusted her, even into adulthood. Ever since she was nine years old, she'd decided that she never wanted to be like her mother. She saved thousands of dollars through all of her years in middle school and high school, so that when she was 18, she could move out immediately.

Seeing the violence in her home caused Eudora to want to stop it. She wanted to be someone who could prevent people getting hurt as her mother was, and was determined to become a cop. She saved up as much money as she could, and once she graduated highschool, she enrolled in the police academy, and bought a small apartment near it.

Update as of May 20th, 2019:

So, I saw a comment that I absolutely agree with, and slightly adjusted my headcanon.

Perhaps, instead of actually experiencing abuse in her own home, she experienced it second hand. A childhood friend, or someone like that. A less violent headcanon that I've also had for a while is that maybe her father just left, around the same time that Eudora's mother and her would have left in the other headcanon.

This version of my headcanon could still leave Eudora's mother wary of men, raising her to be careful around them. If her mother had a close friend, or sister, who escaped from a domestic abuse situation, it could also work better. Leaving Eudora wary of men, but not a direct victim of the abuse. Idk- tell me what y'all think?

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►2. тнє єαяℓу уєαяѕ σf ∂ιєgσ αи∂ єυ∂σяα'ѕ яєℓαтισиѕнιρ.

Both Eudora and Diego had little experience with relationships. Eudora, from a young age, was raised to be scared of men. She didn't think she'd ever want to have an intimate relationship with a man- mostly because she was terrified of becoming like her mother.

Diego grew up as a Hargreeves. Romance was strictly forbidden. He followed the rules as strictly as he could- he wanted nothing more than to be better than Luther at the Academy. In high school, though, he had many girlfriends. Never a long term relationship, though- everything was touch and go for him.

Things changed when they met in the police academy.

Eudora helped Diego through a lot. She tried her best to understand him, and listen to him when all he needed was to know that he's not worthless. He did the same for her, building an incredibly strong bond between the two. Eudora struggled a lot when she fell in love with him.

Diego wasn't dangerous, and she knew he'd never hurt her. But her whole world fell apart when she fell for him. She found reason after reason not to tell him, but she eventually confessed, after months of agonizing over the possibilities. He confessed the same, and their relationship extended to be romantic.

They both had no clue what they were doing, but they figured it out together. They were more alike than they thought, and just grew closer.

They explored a lot together. What their boundaries were romance wise. Their desires sexually (more on this later.)

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►3. ∂ιєgσ тнє ∂яσρσυт.

Diego was kicked from the academy when they weren't far from graduating. He couldn't seem to agree to the laws, so despite being undeniably good at what could've been his job, defiance clearly isn't a trait suitable for a police officer. Eudora was advised to stay away from him after that, due to suspicions that he'd interfere with her career, but she loved him, and he loved her.

Eudora allowed him to help her with assignments. They made an unstoppable team.

Or, what seemed to be an unstoppable team.

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►4. тнє ∂σωиfαℓℓ σf єυ∂ιєgσ.

Diego was bored with bureaucracy. He felt as though he wasn't helping the way that he should. He managed to get access to the police radio, and listened for hours, trying to find any crime to go after. He had moved into Eudora's apartment at this point in time- so it wasn't like she had to do much digging to figure out what he was doing.

Three nights in a row, he disappeared, without her knowing. He'd stopped minor crimes- convienent store robberies, small burglaries, etc. Though one night was different- Diego snuck out as usual, to the scene of some hostage situation at a Circle K just down the street. He didn't like to have to kill the bad guys- but he did.

That night, a lot of gunfire rang out. Eudora got a call at 1:00 AM, telling her she needed to get to the scene. Diego wasn't home, obviously- so she put two and two together. She'd waited just a few minutes, when he got home.

They fought. For the first time in their whole relationship, they fought. She kicked him out of her apartment- she felt hurt, betrayed, and angry at him. They broke up, and despite both parties trying numerous times, they couldn't seem to make it work.

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►5. тнє мσяє... ѕєχυαℓ вιтѕ.

SEXUAL TOPIC WARNING- I'M GONNA BE TALKING ABOUT BDSM AND SHIT LIKE THAT SO-

TUA doesn't exactly hide the kinkiness of Diego and Eudora's relationship. I mean- seriously.

Diego: "It's not spandex, it's leather. And you used to like it. A lot, if I recall."

Eudora: "God, please unremember that."

Diego: "Etched into the data bank, Eudora."

It's actually fucking hilarious to me- I'd probably break up someone too, if they were running around fighting crime in a BDSM suit. It's kinda great.

This subject is probably my favorite to talk about with Eudiego, cause it's really entertaining. A lot of people say that Klaus is the kinky Hargreeves sibling but uh?? No?? It's Diego?? Clearly.

Anyway, so about who would top- Eudora. I'm sorry, but her BDE is WAYYYYY too much for me to handle. Diego is, y'know, a switch- like, with Klaus, Diego would probably top (don't attack me for my opinions I swear-), but Eudora definitely topped in their relationship.

I mean, hell, she tased Diego instantly upon seeing him- like?? Hello?? Also, she shushed him just by putting her hand up. Idk, maybe I'm crazy, but I'm just obsessed with thinking about this part of their relationship. Especially when people try to argue with me about it, cause I fight anyone who dares to act like they think more about Diego and Eudora than I do lolol.

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►6. ωну ι ℓσνє тнιѕ ραιяιиg.

M'kay, so this is gonna be kinda sad. And serious- but ya. Just be warned I guess.

So, a lot of my friends ask me why I'm so obsessed with Diego and Eudora getting together again. A lot of them write it off as because it's just a ship of mine, but, actually? It's because of the ultimate feelings it gives me.

I constantly listen to "This Year's Love" (If you're somehow unaware, that's the song that played when Diego found Eudora's body.) Every time I listen to it, I can just feel the relationship they once had (and have the potential to have again). It speaks volumes for the way that they once felt about each other- and I love it.

I have been in multiple horrific relationships. Abusive, toxic, unrequited, etc. But, that song so clearly reminds me of the love that I adore. The love that I crave feeling.

One line that I constantly hear in my mind is "When ya kiss me, on that midnight street, sweep me off my feet, singin, 'ain't this life so sweet.'" The image it puts in my mind? Stunning.

As to why I think in the show that it's actually a really good pairing- they clearly care for each other. When Diego was in front of the station, waiting for Eudora, she seemed really annoyed. But the moment he mentioned his mom dying, everything about her softened. Her expression, her demeanor, and her voice changed.

Diego said "I just don't know how to-" and clearly began struggling to speak. Before he tried to continue, she just placed her hand on his arm- she didn't need him to continue. From this, I can assume that she's helped him before- or at least, she understands his emotions and struggles to some degree.

Another thing: their whole dynamic works really well. Almost a good girl likes the bad boy kinda thing, but different in a good way. Y'know? Because in most stories like that, the girl is really submissive and such- but Eudiego absolutely defies that. And I love it.

Finally, who was the first person Eudora called? Diego. The MOMENT he found out that she called- he left Five with Luther, and went after her. He was so clearly in anguish when he found her body. Luther had to hold him back from trying to attack Five when he got back to his place.

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►7. ωну ι ℓσνє єυ∂σяα.

So, I adore that we don't get a "soft" Eudora moment. We get plenty from Diego- and sure, she softened up when talking to him about Grace, but uh- we never really see a point where she's showing too much emotion. And I really like the insight that gives into her personality.

Also- I saw this article that was rating TUA characters, and it said that Eudora was the worst character in TUA. I, obviously, disagree- while I despise what they did with her, the character herself was really good. Her personality was honestly great- she was entertaining, kind, beautiful, amazing, and god dammit, I love Eudora.

She was also clearly passionate about her job. She cared about Diego- but her job came first. She did the right thing- the moment she found out where Diego's brother was, it didn't matter that she didn't have backup. She knew something needed to be done, and she did it. And even though Hazel had a gun pointed straight at her, she made sure that she clearly didn't shoot him.

Eudora is an undeniably good person. She loves helping people- otherwise, why would she be a cop?

There was a lot of potential lost, when they killed her off. Luckily, though- season two. The Hargreeves are going back in time. I understand that we got some good Diego development through her death- but what about the development we could have gotten if she lived? She knows Diego better than anyone. I think there was an entire background there that TUA really missed out on by killing her.

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My conclusion? Eudora is way underrated. I wish there was such an endless supply of fanart for her as there is for Klaus. That's why I myself draw her so frickin much- because she doesn't get as much love and appreciation.

Also- I actually once got told by this person that they don't ship Eudiego cause it's straight.

And I just-

Huh?? Like, it's still a good ship. Why once a ship is straight is it not shippable?

I don't care if you don't like Eudiego. What I care about is the reasons- and because it's not gay? That is a bullshit reason, man-

Anyway, I digress. I conclude my rant.

Oh, and, yes, I'll likely update this rant in the future :/

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If you saw this on TUA Amino, that's because I posted this there first- so ya uwu.

[wordsablaze]

5/6: To Reclaim The Dead

Five Times Diego Gave Klaus A Lift … and the one time he returned the gesture in his own way. Enjoy!

A/N: Pretty fluffy chapter actually <3 Only one more left ^.^

Vanya falls unconscious but Diego is more focused on how Klaus is crying and Ben is alive.

Oh, and the fact that they’d become teenagers again within moments.

Allison runs over to Luther, who would have dropped Vanya had it not been for Five's quick reflexes and Allison's sisterly love, but Diego doesn't bother to interfere with any of that.

Instead, he slowly walks towards Klaus and Ben, even though both of them are murmuring to each other rapidly, clearly not meaning for anyone else to hear, perhaps because anyone else simply wouldn't understand.

When he gets close enough, the two of them step apart, send him matching smiles, and then pull him into a hug; Diego smiles happily at the feeling he’d so dearly missed.

“Ben…” he finds himself gasping, shocked at how real and solid his brother is, unlike how they'd just seen him, as some sort of ghostly blue apparition.

“Diego,” Ben whispers back, tears in his eyes and genuine joy behind them rather than anything mocking.

“And I'm Klaus,” Klaus inputs, but not rudely.

They laugh and it's so weird to hear them laughing before they've hit puberty that they all stop pretty quickly, but then dissolve into hysteria again because they'd all been comically in sync.

“You really weren’t ever lying, were you? Oh, you absolute-” Diego clears his throat, offering Klaus an apologetic look. “I’m sorry, Klaus, really.”

After Ben nudges him pointedly, Klaus sighs. “You’re the last person that should be apologising. And, um, I believe a ‘thank you’ is in order.”

“Did-” Diego coughs away the emotion lodged in his throat and replaces it with a small smile- “he used to order you around even when- when he was, uh…”

Klaus cocks his head and lets out a small chuckle. “When he was blue and ghostly? Yeah. He used to try.”

“And then I Patrick… Uh, Patrick something-ed you!” Ben argues smugly.

Despite his clear temptation to reprimand Ben on how he should know the names of iconic people by now, Klaus just grins, the hollow look that’s usually present in his eyes replaced with something close to elation.

Although that might be the lack of drugs and alcohol in his system, Diego notes. If there are any perks of going through life all over again, one of them is definitely that he has the chance to prevent his brother from being reduced to a traumatised, homeless junkie.

Just then, Luther starts rapidly talking behind them and Diego realises he’d forgotten just how irritating that voice could be. He wants to stay and listen and respect his - kind of older - brother, he sort of really does, but there’s definitely something else he’d rather do with his time.

“I have a suggestion,” he announces.

Both of his brothers look mildly surprised before sharing a look, Klaus then turning back to and winking at Diego before he and Ben swivel and start to sprint. Diego huffs in annoyance but the three of them being on the same page again is comforting enough to send any potential dejection away as he chases after them, taking a second to wonder why he’d run around in a leather holster of sorts when he was so much quicker without the weight of it.

As it is, they reach the car at the same time. Or rather, they reach the space where the car had been at the same time. And then they promptly realise that, of course, the car Diego hadn’t grown up and fashioned yet wouldn’t be there.

Diego bites his lip and looks around awkwardly as Ben laughs. In the end, it’s Klaus who solves their problem by staring at and then slowly pointing to a rather rusty car. “We can take that one.”

“Steal it?” Diego asks, his tone making it clear that he doesn’t want Klaus to indulge in theft anymore.

But Klaus shakes his head. “Nah, it’s not stealing if the owner’s ghost is inviting me to take it, is it?”

Ben looks shocked for a moment, as if he’d forgotten he’d no longer be able to see ghosts too, but recovers and reacts the fastest anyway, nodding enthusiastically and pulling Klaus towards the car. Naturally, Diego pushes past them and climbs into the driver’s seat as Klaus and Ben follow and eventually settle into the passenger’s seat, squashed together but clearly not bothered about it.

“Where to, guys?” Diego asks, turning the engine on.

Ben puts a hand over Klaus’ mouth as he answers: “My room, please.”

For a second, both Klaus and Diego stop breathing. It’s understandable that he’d want to go back there but going back there holds the risk of running into one Reginald Hargreeves and they’re not sure how good of an idea that is.

Before either of them can voice that thought, Ben lets out a rather satisfied giggle. “See? I can give you false information just as well as Klaus can.”

Klaus groans, finally pushing Ben’s hand away and giving him an incredulous look. “Seriously? It took an apocalypse for you to get enough confidence for that?”

Diego interrupts at this point by pressing down on the accelerator and causing them all to be thrown back. “Sorry!” he mutters, adrenaline roaring in his veins before he can figure out how to slow down.

When he turns to his brothers, Klaus is frozen, with Ben clinging to him like some sort of koala. He can’t even tell which of their expressions is more hilarious and he wishes he had one of those camera phones Eudora was always trying to convince him to buy so he could capture the moment.

“What about that ice cream place?” Klaus suggests, starting to poke Ben’s hair as if in awe of its existence.

Diego nods. “Sure. It won’t be as good as Ben’s masterpieces though.”

Ben abruptly snaps out of his shocked daze and bats Klaus’ hand away with an affronted look before staring at Diego slyly. “There might be a lot less crying with this one, though.”

They almost crash.

Very narrowly avoiding hitting a lamppost, Diego coughs yet again. “You, uh, you saw that?”

Klaus rolls his eyes, going to put his feet up on the dashboard but realising he’s not tall enough before settling on folding his arms. “Which part of Ben haunting me did you not understand when I told you?”

“The part where you’re not sober,” Diego replies honestly.

“I am sober!” Klaus argues defensively, then groans when Ben clears his throat and reluctantly adds: “Okay, so I wasn’t sober before meeting Dave. But Ben never needed me to be sober anyway…”

Ben nods at this point. “I guess I just had more reason to stay attached.”

Diego takes a minute to focus on getting a space for their car, ending up parking perfectly and switching the engine off. “I’m sorry I didn’t believe it sooner,” he says, and he’s not sure who exactly he’s addressing.

It doesn’t matter anyway because all three of them hear it and dwell on it for only a few seconds before clambering out of the car and linking arms just like old times, Ben in the middle so he can get the full experience of being able to feel again, the three of them wearing matching, nostalgic smiles.

The owner of the car's ghost beams at them and offers a thumbs-up to Klaus, who smiles back at him and chooses not to mention it to his brothers in favour of maintaining their comfortable silence.

They’d never been an ordinary set of siblings so mundane rules of society and the etiquette of growing up hadn’t really applied to them. And now, as they take childhood in their stride for the second time, despite everything they’ve gone through, all three of them can agree they wouldn’t want to have it any other way.

like/reblog but don’t repost, thanks!  Masterlist

[thesimplyluxuriouslife]

255: 34 Inspiring Daily Rituals to Ignite Your Creativity

We talk quite often about the importance of routine, and how by having a routine, we actually set ourselves free, especially our minds. And it is in that vein that Mason Curry shares his two books Daily Rituals. His second is focused entirely on Women at Work, sharing the routines and preferences of creative women who lived and created over the past four centuries.

I thoroughly enjoyed his second book, even more than the first which I also found great inspiration. It was refreshing to see so many women living their lives in a variety of different ways, but all in which they discovered worked well for them and the craft they most loved.

Not all of the ideas resonated with me, but it was wonderful to get into the minds for a moment of these women and how they approached their days. I highlighted vigorously from beginning to end, and would like to share 34 daily routines to consider to enable your creative ideas to flow freely and without withdrawal.

Some will speak to you, some will not, but each one is inspired by a woman's routine which is shared in the book: Daily Rituals: Woman at Work - 143 artists on how they paint, write, perform, direct, choreograph, design, sclpt, compose, dance, etc.

~Be sure to tune into the audio version of the podcast where much more discussion takes place on each point. 

1.Begin with a hot glass of lemon water

Designer Elsa Schiaparelli woke up at 8 am, sipped lemon-juice-and-water and a cup of tea for breakfast as she read the papers, handled private correspondence, made telephone calls and gave the menus of the day to the cook.

2. Wake up early if that is when your creativity is most fruitful

—Lillian Hellman would wake up at 6am.

—Marie Bashkirtseff would wake up at 6am

—Maggie Hambling wakes up at 5am each morning

"I get up between three or four o'clock in the morning, because that's my best writing time." —Octavia Butler

3. If spending less time with people fuels your creativity, embrace it fully

"I enjoy people best if I can be alone much of the time. I used to worry about it because my family worried about it. And I finally realized: This is the way I am. That's that." —Octavia Butler in 1998

4. If traditional "holidays" don't work for you, create your own, or dive into what you love.

Coco Chanel worked six days a week, and dreaded Sundays and holidays. As she told one confidant, "That word, 'vacation,' makes me sweat."

5. Greet the day in a habitual way that sets the tone for a great day

6. Live your ideas, don't talk about them

"People would sit around and talk about things constantly. I never really went in for that. If you talk something out, you will never do it. You can spend every evening talking with your friends and colleagues about your dreams, but they will remain just that —dreams." —choreographer Martha Graham

7. Keep a small journal next to your bed to capture ideas

"I always have notebook and pencil on the table at my bedside. I may wake up in the middle of the night with something I want to put down." —American poet Edna St. Vincent Millay

8. If you work at home, carve out a part of the day to get out of the house and just absorb inspiration or let go of the day completely 

"In the nocturnal evening, I get the hell out to some movie or damn play and I come back and sleep like a rock." —Frida Kahlo

9. Figure out the ingredients that are needed to let the ideas find you

To develop a new work of choreography, Agnes de Mille needed 'a pot of tea, walking space, privacy and an idea'.

10. Don't feel obligated to keep the same schedule when you are in the middle of creating your art or craft

Margaret Bourke-White required long periods of solitude to write, with as few interruptions as possible." In an interview with a Life photographer Nina Leen, Leen remembers after asking her if she would have lunch with her, "She told me she was writing a book and there was no hope of a lunch for several years.

11. Don't feel bad for loving your work and working on what you love beyond the traditional work hours.

"Everything seems petty and uninteresting, everything except my work . . . ". Russian-born painter and sculptor Marie Bashkirtseff

12. Do something during the day that is relaxing and keeps you present

'I relax before lunch by arranging flowers . . . When these are all beautifully arranged in bowls and vases, it's usually lunch time." —English actress Gertrude Lawrence

13. Have a studio or space of your own to create

"The most important thing is to have a studio and establish and preserve its atmosphere." —Agnes Martin

14. If you love solitude, embrace it 

"But it is, as Yeats said, a 'solitary sedentary trade.' And I did a lot of gardening and cooked my own food, and listened to music, and of course I would read. I was really very happy. I can live a solitary life for month at a time, and it does me good." —poet Katherine Anne Porter

15. Trust your intuition as to what works best for you

"It's not right if it doesn't feel right." —English painter Bridget Riley

16. Find regular time to just read what you love

Rachel Whiteread [English sculptor] would "at some point stop for lunch, and she'd often spend an hour of the day reading sitting in a comfortable chair away from her desk.

17. Establish a flexible routine to work with what you need

Morning routine: "Zittel feeds her chickens, waters plants, and performs other outdoor chores before meditating, taking a shower, making breakfast and getting dressed. In the winter, Zittel's morning schedule reverses: She meditates, showers and eats breakfast first; then, once the sun has raised the outdoor temperature, she heads out on her hike and does chores. 'It's really all about establishing a flexible routine."Andrea Zittel, an American artist, in 2017

18. Don't quit trying to live the life you wish to live

"It never occurred to me that I couldn't live the life I wanted to lead. It never occurred to me that I could be stopped . . . I had this very simple view: that the reason people who start out with ideals or aspirations don't do what they dream of doing when they're young is because they quit. I thought, well, I won't quit." —Susan Sontag

19. Try a crossword puzzle like Joan Mitchell

20. Determine what view in your studio/sanctuary/work space is most productive for inspiration

"Where do I write? In a Morris chair beside the window, where I can see a few trees and a patch of sky, more or less blue." —Kate Chopin, American writer

21. End the day with a signal to your mind to relax

"During the performance I drink water with breadcrumbs, which is most refeshing. After the ballet I have a bath as soon as possible. Then I go out to dinner, as by that time I have an unmerciful hunger. When I get home I drink tea." —Russian prima ballerina Anna Pavlova

22. Let baths be your creative muse

"Baths also played a part in her creative process - a post-breakfast bath enjoyed regularly by Virginia Woolf.

23. Let lunch be a true mid-day break

At 1:00 p.m., Hambling has lunch, takes her Tibetan terrier, Lux, for a walk, and switches on the television to satisfy her tennis addiction.

24. Write when inspiration hits - even if it is in bed in the morning so as not lose the ideas. 

25. Go outside and breathe in the fresh air

"Fresh air and cold water are my stimulants." —Harriet Martineau - the first female sociologist

26. Enjoy someone's company for tea, lunch or a walk regularly 

Emily Post would regularly welcome a guest or two for tea in the afternoon.

27. It's okay for your personal time to be less than what others feel is acceptable 

"It seems to me you have to have your personal life organized so that it takes as little of your time as possible. Otherwise you can't make your art." –Eleanor Antin

28. Don't expect the routine to come naturally, create one and stick with it as it enables you to flourish

29. Cook and walk

"The only other essential component of her day is a twice-daily walk with her dog, during which she avoids thinking about her writing project. In the evening, she makes herself a simple dinner and goes to bed at 10:00 or 11:00 p.m.." —Isabel Allende

30. Create space for your ideas to be seen 

"Open a gap for them, create a space. Be patient." — Hilary Mantel

"I think the way to become inspired is to empty your mind and let things come into your mind."  —Joan Jonas

31. Do you and don't apologize

"I live here as in Paris. I rise every day at 5 o'clock; I drink my two large glasses of hot water; I take my coffee; I write when I am alone, which is rare; I do my hair in company; I dine every day with the king, chez lui, or with him and les seigneurs. I make calls after dinner; I go to the theater; I return to my place at ten o'clock; I drink my hot water , and I go to bed." —Marie-Thérèse Rodet Geoffrin, a major salonniéres of the French Englightenment

32. Turn on music paired with your favorite drink to start the day

"I wake about nine, turn on the symphony and have juice, fruit and a pot of black coffee . . . " —Grace Hartigan, American painter

33. Leave evenings open for your social engagements

"In the evening, she would see a friend for dinner or attend another social engagement. But the real key to this perfect writing day, she said, was to know that the following day would be exactly the same." —Eudora Welty

34. Be patient until you find what works, then cherish it

"Trial and error, and then when you've found your needs, what feeds you, what is your instinctive rhythm and routine, then cherish it." —novelist Doris Lessing

~SIMILAR POSTS/EPISODES YOU MIGHT ENJOY:

~Why Not . . . Be Creative?

~The Benefit of Daily Rituals

~The Importance of a Daily Routine & How to Create One You Love, episode #164

Petit Plaisir:

~Chilled Cucumber and Yogurt Soup with Dill and Fresh Mint, a Patricia Wells recipe, click here for the recipe

~Why Not . . . Grow a(n) Herb Garden?

~Check out TSLL's IG account, see the Highlights and Part 3 of my FR Trip '18 - mid-roll to see the presentation of the dish in Provence.

~Chilled Cucumber and Yogurt Soup with Dill and Fresh Mint, enjoyed in Provence with Patricia Wells and the other cooking class students during the summer of 2018~

~the same dish served this past weekend as the second course during a dinner party at my home. Cool and crisp cucumber and yogurt soup.~

Tune in to the latest episode of The Simple Sophisticate podcast

[big-edies-sun-hat]

Just finished reading

The Ponder Heart, Eudora Welty.

As I mentioned, I usually forget to leave Eudora Welty off my list of influences. Partly this is because I didn’t read her as a young person, but partly it is that I am pretty much a Eudora Welty character. After I read her for the first time, I looked at the book, and I looked back at my work, and I said: it is the damnedest thing. I have worked all my life at becoming an authoritative, just-as-good-as-British fantasy/historical author, telling dark and grand and worldbuilt stories with erudition and wit; but what Nature made me was a Southern lady who drinks rose, wears matte lipstick to go exercise, and shouts y’all git at errant dogs.

The Ponder Heart is a light comic novel about Daniel Ponder, a wealthy Mississippi timber heir who compulsively gives away everything he owns, and has to be either institutionalized or married to prevent this happening. It is a book that I could sit down and read aloud without changing anything of my natural inflection or tone. At first, I thought I’d like to do that sometime, maybe for my folks, who like to hear me read aloud. But the book was a bit of a roller coaster ride in this respect. My reactions were as follows:

·       This is hilarious and charming

·       Except for the structural racism

·       And the fact that this adorable eccentric family must of necessity have gotten rich from it

·       Also are we not going to talk about the fact that this poor man is intellectually disabled

·       Apparently we aren’t

·       Oh and now there’s explicit racism

·       Definitely not going to talk about that are we

Welty was a progressive by the standards of the time; the racism she depicted was period-accurate, but no less alienating for that. So it is not a book for everybody. But I left it feeling as I do when I am at home: horrified and charmed at the same time. And there is something precious inside of it—this passage:

I don’t know if you can measure love at all. But Lord knows there’s a lot of it, and seems to me from all the studying I’ve done over Uncle Daniel—and he loves more people than you and I put together ever will—that if the main one you’ve set your heart on isn’t speaking for your love, or is out of your reach some way, married or dead, or plain nitwitted, you’ve still got that love banked up somewhere. What Uncle Daniel did was just bestow his all around quick—men, women, and children. Love! There’s always somebody wants it. Uncle Daniel knew that. He’s smart in a way you aren’t, child.

And it is true: I am not.

I wonder if Welty knew about Williams syndrome.

[ed.: the money was in timber, not in cotton]

[ashariajade]

Umbrella Academy - My Thoughts -  Contains Spoilers

So, now that I managed to get some sleep, here’s my thoughts on Umbrella Academy.

Yes, there will be spoilers here, so avoid if you haven’t seen the show and don’t want to know what happens.

So, overall I loved it.  Too many shows go straight for the grim-dark, full-angst, all drama and I can’t watch them.  It’s why I pretty much have stalled out on   The Walking Dead. Was the show angsty, and dark in spots? Hell yeah. But they also tempered it with humour and laughter and fluff. They didn’t just hammer at you with pain and horror and everything is bad. 

Now for the Characters: (No real order other than how they pop into my head)

Luther - even by the end I still wanted to tell him to grow up. At least he had moved away from the Dad-is-always-right mentality he had at the beginning, but he was still so childishly naive in the face of what was going on. Of them all he’s probably the most emotionally stunted, though he did have some growth in that area by the end he still has quite a way to go before he manages to come into who he can be.

Allison - of all of them is probably the most stable. With what happened with Claire and her realizing the abuse of her powers and pretty much vowing to not use them again (though it’s not explicitly said), she’s the one the seemed to have the most growth pre-pilot.  And she continues, especially in her interactions with Vanya.

Klaus - who is of all of them my favourite. That poor boy. Is he a fuck up? Yes, so much.  But understandably so. Finding out how Reginald Hargreeves trained Klaus to use his powers was horrifying.  I seethed through that whole part with the urge to reach through the screen and strangle a fictional character. Of all of them, he has the most growth.  He learns himself. Does he still do stupid shit? Yes, but he wouldn’t be Klaus if he didn’t. His interactions with Ben are touching, hilarious in parts, and so damn heartbreaking.  I spent the whole time wondering if Klaus held on to Ben and kept him there or did Ben hold on to Klaus so that he wouldn’t leave his family.

Diego - my violent little boy.  He’s another one I felt for so much. If you watch you see that in some ways the others kind of paired off. Allison and Luther with a pre-romantic relationship, Ben and Klaus seemed to be close (hinted at), and Vanya and Fives seemed to be close (hinted at with her leaving the lights on and leaving snacks out for him), but Diego had no one but Grace aka Mom.  She’s the center of his world. Which makes everything with her so much harder to take. His relationship with Det. Patch was cute though (I will talk about her in a bit). The teasing, the goodnatured bickering, the tension - both sexual and professional, everything between them was so cute. 

Fives - arrogant, self-entitled, assholish, what else can be said about Fives?  He loves his family. He actually cares about stopping the Apocolypse.  While he says he doesn’t regret the things he had to do while working for the Commision, you can see that it haunts him. And imagine, being 58 in a 13 yr old body. He’s smart though, but his issue is that he forgets that other people can be smart too. He underestimates people in that regard, including his own family because he believes he’s smarter than all of them.  He’s the most unstable of them all, but then again, he jumped time to the future and spent decades alone with only a mannequin for company before the Commission got their hooks into them.

Ben - I really wish we had more of his story. We don’t know how he died, only that he stuck around. He’s always with Klaus, even with Klaus drugs himself to block out all the other ghosts. Him helping to save Diego when the Academy was coming down and again in the theatre was just awesome. I’m hoping they bring more of him into the second season and we learn more of his story.

Vanya - the ordinary one. I loved the forshadowing done in the first episode. I’m fairly certain the opening scene is her being born. Then after the whole Hargreeves adopting (buying) them, it cuts to her performing Phantom of the Opera (Lindsay Sterling’s version which rocks btw), which as it the intro scenes ago on you find out is to an empty theatre.  So much foreshadowing and very poetic. Even the songs chosen. Her whole arc, being the ordinary one, being left out and left behind all the time, transition into finding out that she’s not ordinary, but extremely powerful.  The whole thing with Peabody/Jenkins creeped me out, but he creeped me out from the first moment. The way Hargreeves treated her pissed me off though. The whole “someone/thing is too powerful we have to lock it up/neutralize it” frame of mind. Her powers are tied to her emotions and because he basically abused and used them, they were raised by a robot, who did her best but doesn’t really have emotions, so she was never taught to control them and use them.  Also, you can’t just lock something in a box and pretend it doesn’t exist. That way lies disaster.  Hence, the Apocolypse.  Potential and powers like that, those tied to emotions don’t just fade when locked away, they grow.  Each moment of anger, pain, humiliation, grief, they all add to that potential.  He had to know she would only get more powerful, that sooner to later Allison’s rumour would wear off or be destroyed and Vanya would remember.

I am glad they didn’t go the whole White Violin from the comics. Interesting look, but no.

Leonard Peabody aka Harold Jenkins - definition of “Cool motive, still murder”. Creep extraordinaire .  Granted, he didn’t want to destroy the world, just the Umbrella Academy, but the way he used Vanya made me so sick. Just about everything he did even before we found out his backstory had me wanting to go scrub down.  Glad to know my instincts are correct.

Pogo and Mom - both are stories I want to know more about. How did Pogo end up there? How did Hargreeves create Mom? We know why, because of Vanya, even if it benefited the others in the end as well. Pogo holding on to so many of the secrets when he should have said something pissed me off though.  He should have let some of them go sooner.

Det. Eudora Patch - I loved her.  As I said, the byplay between her and Diego was so cute.  Just so fun to watch.  There was so much potential there and then, of course, they fridged her.  That had to be the most disappointing part of the show.  Killing a woman to give a man pain.  Really, haven’t we gotten past that yet?  I know they did it to have the whole Diego learns that violence is not the answer arc, but still,  they could have kept her alive and did the same damn thing. 

Hazel and Cha-Cha - such interesting characters.  And Hazel’s arc. Especially finding out that he’s let people go before.  That he’s never been a heartless killed.  Cha-Cha, however, is a heartless killer.  Seriously, she has issues. And her not realizing the Handler was going to leave them there since they had no briefcase? I laughed my ass off.

The Handler - all I can say is what a bitch.

Dave - I wish we could have gotten a bit more of the whole Klaus Dave thing.  I just wanted to bundle them up and hide them somewhere that no one and nothing could hurt them.

Delores - well, yeah, um...

My favourite parts:

The dancing to I Think We’re Alone Now. I laughed so hard I couldn’t breathe. 

Allison and Luther calling Claire and Luther saying all the things that Allison can’t and her just breaking down and crying.  That was just so painful to watch.

Luther the Furry.

All the times Fives talks to Delores.

Klaus being strangled by Cha-Cha. (that was hilarious)

Heartbreaking Parts:

Klaus saying that no one would notice him missing, and no one did.

Hearing Allison talking about what she did, how she used her powers on Claire.

Vanya drawing the Umbrella Academy tattoo on her arm while everyone else was getting theirs.

Klaus not being able to connect to/find Dave.

When they realize that Vanya is the apocalypse.

Least Favourite Parts: (for various reason)

Klaus being locked in the mausoleum.

Vanya being locked in the vault thing (both times, Luther you idiot!)

Det. Patch being killed.

The whole way Hargreeves treated the kids (seriously, want to strangle him)

Peabody dumping out Vanya’s pills (wow, that had me shaking with anger.  I had figured it out at that point but still, so pissed off).

The whole way they all treat Klaus.

Luther’s attitude.

So, I’m gonna give it a bit and then rewatch the whole season. Hopefully, a second season doesn’t take too long.  I would love to see more.  As I said, I loved it. It was pretty much well done overall.

A cliffhanger ending though.  That was annoying.

[eurello]

Media Diet, Week of April 19th

I am forever working on improving the quality of the deluge of culture I am taking in at all times. Lately, I’ve been especially rigorous about this, as I keep realizing exactly how much valuable time I am wasting slurping up really dumb stuff. In an attempt at accountability (and to make myself ashamed to spend too much time on anything purely dumb), I am going to try logging and posting about the culture I consume. I will analyze what attracts me to the trashier things, and attempt to train myself, little by little, day by day, into better habits.  

Sunday, April 19th:

As I was getting ready and making breakfast, I listened to podcasts as usual — the end of Oh No, Ross & Carrie, and the beginning of Baby Geniuses. I enjoy both of these podcasts a lot, and I think they are good things to listen to, although this particular episode of ONRC went on for too long. I have gone through phases of listening to a lot of political podcasts, but I have recently admitted to myself that I’m not that interested in politics, and that is perfectly fine. I think it’s important for a citizen to remain up to date and aware of what is going on, but I have this sort of weird feeling that smart people are obsessed with politics? And I don’t know why I feel that way. There’s nothing especially noble or intelligent about political governance; quite the opposite most of the time. Politicians are often venal, and even if when they aren’t, the more time you spend paying attention to the largely broken processes they attempt to navigate and massage every day, the worse it probably is for your own sense of hope, and certainly for your own creativity. So I’ve let myself off the hook on this one, and now I mostly listen to humor podcasts and weird fictional things.

As I drank my breakfast (smoothie/coffee) and procrastinated at doing something more worthwhile, I spent probably two hours on Twitter, Instagram, and various websites. This is becoming a big problem for me. On Twitter, I follow mostly comedy writers, liberals, feminists, black Twitter, and weird Twitter (and intersections of all of the above), and some local political organizations. I tweeted a lot this morning, as well. On Instagram, I follow a lot of the same people I do on Twitter, plus a TON of visual artists. I am not a visual artist, but because Instagram is a visual medium, it’s nice to follow artists, and I sometimes find it inspiring — if not to create art myself, at least maybe to make my house look nicer (although I never do). I also follow some old school fashion and lifestyle bloggers who I’ve been following for like ten years, and although I do not find that kind of blogging interesting at all anymore, I am interested in these particular people, and invested in their lives at this point. I also embarrassingly have been paying a good bit of attention lately to a certain terrible influencer, who I won’t name because I don’t want to draw the wrong kind of attention here, but you probably know who she is. She is entirely boring, but people are interested in her for a variety of reasons, and they all have complicated explanations for why. I think it’s that she’s sort of the purest example of the sort of woman (blond, thin, pretty, performatively aspirational yet empty enough to be completely non-threatening to anyone) that middle-class Americans have always been culturally encouraged to admire and, if they are women, to emulate, and yet, it’s so apparent that there is no there there. I imagine most people who follow her are thinking, “I can’t believe I thought I needed to be this in high school!” For me personally, there’s something else to it, and after thinking about it so that I could write it down here, I think it is that I spend a lot of time mildly regretting that I had not been more intentional about pursuing my creative dreams in my 20s (I was sort of dabbling in comedy and performance and writing; I had some talent but little intelligence), but at the same time, when I look back over my work and writings from that time, I am horrified by how stupid I was without realizing it (and not just stupid for my age, because I was surrounded by far more intelligent and creative people who have gone on to do amazing things, and there are many preternaturally wise and hilarious babies who are creating right now). Had I had a bigger platform at the time, I fear I would have looked a lot like a less successful this girl. So, it’s a sort of cautionary tale that really just serves to make me feel better about having avoided exposure I’d now regret (albeit through laziness rather than foresight). And also, being able to realize this now is a reminder that I am at least smarter now than I used to be, so I have been growing in some way, even if it feels like I’ve just been atrophying intellectually and creatively ever since I got a real job. I think now that I’ve written this down, I’m ready to let go of paying attention to her. Also, though, I just feel bad for her, and I want to see what happens to her and if she ends up ok or not. Which possibly sounds nobler than it is — am I really just rubbernecking at an accident? I don’t think I wish her harm. Anyway, in non-shame scrolling, two of my favorite comics on Twitter and Instagram right now are Eva Victor and Alyssa Lamparis. They are both brilliantly hilarious.

The first few chapters of “Joshua”, while working on one of my blog posts about the Old Testament.

A chapter of The High Growth Handbook, for work, which I’m finding more interesting than most business books.

Moral Clarity by Susan Neiman, which I’m not really enjoying. This isn’t necessarily why I’m not enjoying it, but I gave some thought while reading this about why I find the left’s current backlash against “identity politics” to be disingenuous. I mean, other than the fact that it is only white people (and mostly white men) who argue that identity politics are a pointless distraction from real social change. And it’s that nobody — no matter how naive — thinks that we are going to transform all human systems overnight. Abrupt revolutions rarely happen in established societies, and even when they do, they never stick; no matter how you come about it, lasting social change always takes forever. So, eschewing identity politics as a mere distraction implies that those who unfairly have less power and influence under the current system should just be content with their marginalization until we have a new system altogether. And that those who are over-represented in the current system shouldn’t be criticized or made to lose anything in the interests of equity and social justice until we have a new system altogether. That this is the same old self-serving bullshit from a different direction seems so obvious to me, I don’t understand why so many smart people are buying into it. There is no getting around our historical legacy of racial oppression! There’s just no scenario in which white people are not going to have to deal with that first, before we can successfully build systems that are more just and more fair! You have to address both things at the same time, and no, just focusing on economic class is not going to cut it — especially not when so many people pretend that they don’t understand that poverty results from lack of access and limited options, and has little to do with whether you have much money at any given time (in reality, they understand this very well). And I can’t take any leader seriously (no matter how far left) who does not get that, and/or who won’t force their followers to acknowledge it.  

“Where outrage itself is exhausted, even despair is impossible. The resulting inertia is not the result of an ideology, postmodern or otherwise. But anyone who wants to oppose it must oppose an ideology that makes inertia the most rational response.”

Finished Baby Geniuses and started listening to Get Rich Nick as I prepared for my run, and as I showered after my run. Nick V is a good pal of mine from Chicago — we came up through iO at the same time and were on a Harold team together for like a year. He’s hilarious and I enjoy his podcast, but I suspect I partly find it so funny because it’s just very…Nick.

I listen to the same Spotify playlist on every run. I made it for running and it’s all exactly what you’d expect someone like me would listen to while running.

I watched an episode of season 2 of “Big Little Lies” while I ate dinner. I thought the first season (while it had its faults) was perfectly cast and pretty impressively honest in how it dealt with domestic violence and rape. I wasn’t interested enough to seek out season 2, but I recently noticed HBO is streaming some shows for free right now on Amazon Prime (which I have finally, finally canceled because #morals but still have through August), so I started watching it, and I still love the cast. I will watch Laura Dern in absolutely anything, and it’s really fun to watch Reese Witherspoon play what I imagine is basically herself.

Listened to more Get Rich Nick while I cleaned up the kitchen and got ready for bed.

Finished the night off with The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty — she’s one of my faves and I’ve read two of these four collections multiple times, but right now am on The Wide Net which is new to me. Read the titular “The Wide Net” and really enjoyed it and then “A Still Moment,” which was boring but made me want to get my computer out and google Audubon. Then fell asleep reading this weird old novel I’m slowly working through called The Man Who Loved Children.

“‘She’s a lot smarter than her cousins in Beulah,’ said Virgil. ‘And especially Edna Earle, that never did get to be what you’d call a heavy thinker. Edna Earle could sit and ponder all day on how the little tail of the ‘C’ got through the ‘L’ in a Coca-Cola sign.’”

Monday, April 20th:

Instagram on the toilet, Get Rich Nick while I performed my ablutions and made coffee, and Instagram stories and Feedly for a bit while I drank it. I spend less time on this today, the awareness of accountability is already working! About Instagram stories — I usually ignore them altogether but every so often I go through phases of watching them. I find them mostly very boring, but because I mostly follow creatives on Instagram, there’s something inspiring about starting my day by watching a bunch of creative people all around the world making things. At least starting a day off this way (which today fortunately is); starting a work day this way makes me feel an intense despair. I also follow a few farmers, and it’s fun to see their daily lives. And also just a bunch of people who live in gorgeous places around the world. And ok, yeah, a couple of hate follows, which for me are people who I just find so unbelievably grating and irritating in every way that I can’t stop watching them — I just can’t believe they exist and yet aren’t entirely consumed with self-loathing. And I think for me it’s like, I find them so utterly obnoxious in every way, but they still all have lots of people in their lives who truly love them, and that’s affirming to me personally, because I often feel like I couldn’t ask anyone to tolerate me for very long unless/until I’ve attained perfection in every sphere, so it’s a nice reminder to me that that’s not really how people operate. In Feedly, I follow 3 Quarks Daily and The Morning News, some political digests, a number of old school bloggers I’ve been following forever (mostly funny ones), a handful of newsletters (mostly by people who used to be bloggers), and some sustainability bloggers to guilt me into making better choices. I probably spend about 90 minutes on all of this? Which is too much time!

More “Joshua.”

I poke around online and find and follow a handful more artists from around the world on Instagram and/or Twitter. These aren’t really very interesting ones, and so I’ll probably unfollow them soon, but they’re a bunch of diverse young people, and lately I feel out of touch with what young people are doing. One funny thing about young people is they have so much energy and so many interests, so all of them are doing like ten really shitty things — they’re making crappy art, they’re writing nonsense, they’re performing dopey shows, AND they’re in a shitty band. And then they get older and they realize that it takes an incredible amount of time and effort and research and angst to do even one thing semi-well, and at that point, they either disappear or focus. Anyway, I mostly stick to Twitter for these — I only follow artists on Instagram whose work I find genuinely appealing; Twitter is more for people I’m interested in hearing more about how they perceive the world, but am not necessarily interested in what they’re making. Also, for Twitter, I use TweetDeck and make lists, so it’s a lot easier to follow and unfollow groups of people than it is on Instagram. Like I’ll make a list of “possibly interesting” and watch it for awhile, and then I might move two people on it to a more permanent list and then just delete the whole list.

Listen to The Read while I make a smoothie.

Two short stories from an old issue of Salt Hill, both terrible.

A chapter of High Growth Handbook, and two of Moral Clarity.

Listened to The Read and Scam Goddess while gearing up for run, walking back from run showering, cooking dinner, and cleaning up the kitchen. Usual playlist on run.

Spent some lost time on Twitter and Instagram while crouching on the floor and shivering in my sweaty running clothes, and then again after dinner while sitting on the couch. I’m starting to realize that I look at social media when what my brain really wants to be doing is just….sitting and staring and not taking in anything.

Three Welty stories, “Asphodel” (enjoyable), “The Winds” (in which Welty is starting to find the voice she will master in The Golden Apples), and “The Purple Hat” (eh). Interrupted, I am embarrassed to admit, by looking at Twitter and my email and also reading some articles about Welty.

The Man Who Loved Children

Tuesday, April 21st:

There are two things I want to stop doing, and I did both today. First, after my alarm went off, I spent 90 minutes hitting the snooze button and also pursuing Twitter and Instagram in bed. My entire goal is to reserve as much time for myself in the evenings as possible, for doing what I want to be doing. And I waste a lot of that limited time in procrastinating what I don’t want to be doing. And this is the first place it happens — lounging in bed staring at my phone instead of getting up and going to work.

Finished Scam Goddess and started The High Low while I got ready, made coffee and my smoothie.

After work, I did the second thing I want to stop doing — I spent 90 minutes sitting on the couch looking at Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, and rubbernecking at a long train wreck thread on NextDoor (people are wilding out at this point), procrastinating getting my running kit on and going out for my exercise. All together, this is THREE HOURS of wasted time that could go toward my evenings, where I get to do the stuff I want to do! I’m robbing myself of this valuable time.

I walked for most of my run because I was sore from some exercises I did, and I finished The High Low. When I got home, I listened to Office Ladies, which is not a very good podcast, but it’s just mindlessly comforting to listen to and I like thinking about The Office, which is mindlessly comforting to watch, as I took a shower, made dinner, and cleaned up the kitchen.

The Man Who Loved Children

Wednesday, April 22nd:

Well, I still hit the snooze for an hour but I DIDN’T browse Twitter before I got out of bed. Listened to Lady to Lady while I got ready and made a smoothie and coffee.

Couple of breaks during my workday, during which times I looked at Twitter, Reddit, and Instagram.

I worked later than usual and it was rainy out, so I didn’t go out for exercise, but I still spent TWO HOURS on the couch mindlessly scrolling (Twitter, Instagram, NextDoor train wreck). So, all told, I still wasted three hours on garbage today.

Listened to Lady to Lady and Your Favorite Band Sucks while I made dinner, ate it, cleaned up after it, and got ready for bed. Your Favorite Band Sucks takes down a lot of bands I genuinely like, and I truly do enjoy hearing people rip apart things that I enjoy for some reason (cultural masochism). This episode, though, is on Billy Joel, which I feel is low-hanging fruit, although it reminds me of when this guy I had a massive crush on in high school got super into Billy Joel (I know) and so I spent a few months listening to him and trying to convince myself I also thought he was brilliant. Listening to this podcast makes me realize how much time I spent trying to convince myself that I liked bands that guys I had a thing for worshipped. I don’t really listen to music very much (note absence of it from this entire week) since podcasts became a thing -- I just always vastly prefer narrative if I have a choice. Either music is too distracting from the thing I’m trying to do, or I have enough bandwidth to listen to a podcast while I’m doing the thing, which I prefer. There’s just very rarely any place in my day where music makes sense. You will never find me getting stoned or drunk and just sitting and listening to music -- I can’t fathom how people do that. Whenever I’ve tried it, I’ve just gotten so angry that I took away the mental capacity to read and am wasting all that excellent reading time just sitting there. I guess I don’t really like turning my brain off. Some people spend all their time trying to turn their brain off, but that actually causes stress in my case; fun for me is more taking a ton of adderall to really get it jumping. I don’t mean to imply by that that I’m smart or I use my brain for anything worthwhile, I really, really don’t. I just like the feeling of being alert and I like thinking my dumb thoughts and following along with narratives of whatever kind. 

The Man Who Loved Children

Thursday, April 23rd:

Success! I hit snooze for 20 minutes only and then I got to work!

Listened to a new podcast by a comic I like while I got ready, and I won’t say which one, because it wasn’t very good, and I don’t want to slam the first episode (I’m sure it will get better).

Very brief Instagram/Twitter/Feedly breaks a couple times throughout the day.

Success again! After work, I only looked at Twitter for 20 minutes before heading out for my run. Usual playlist on run. On my walk back, I recorded an Instagram story.

Listened to old episodes of Sawbones and By the Book (both of which I’m trying to decide if I like or not) and You’re Wrong About while getting ready for run, showering, cooking dinner, cleaning up the kitchen, getting ready for bed. This episode of You’re Wrong About was about Marie Antoinette and was really fun, although I have a hard time with this podcast, because the voice of the woman who hosts it kind of traumatizes me. I do not like criticizing women’s voices and she can’t help her voice or how it affects me, but she has this sort of sarcastic, flat, patronizing tone that makes her sound like a cool girl of the intellectual cast of cool girls who thinks you are the stupidest little try-hard femme ever to be brought before her, and it gives me some unpleasant flashbacks to certain incidents in college. But I like the podcast overall (and her probably!) and so I just try to get over it.

Read “Livvie” by Eudora Welty, and then finished The Man Who Loved Children.

Friday, April 24th:

Hit snooze for a full hour, but then got up. Listened to another first episode of a new podcast by another comic I like that also was not very good while I got ready, etc. and also a bit later in the car as I made a grocery store run.

Couple very short Twitter/Feedly breaks throughout the day.

Usual music playlist on run. I’ve got a podcast playlist of weird fictional stuff that I’m mostly listening to old episodes of from the beginning and many are new to me and I’m trying to decide if I liked them. Today, during the usual periods of podcast listening, I went through episodes of Welcome to Night Vale and The Lost Cat Podcast, both of which I am enjoying, although I have trouble paying attention to Welcome to Night Vale and always realize after I finish an episode that I didn’t really hear any of it.  

Watched 1.25 episodes of Big Little Lies while I ate takeout and spotted my friend Mike playing the marriage counselor in one of them! Having a background in performance makes for very weird TV and movie experiences now, because I’ll pretty often see someone I know well in something. Often, it’s a really happy surprise like this one, but sometimes it’s a really unpleasant one, like when you’re sitting around with your family and you see a guy who dumped you pretty brutally playing the dopey, amiable dad in a commercial and get plunged into despair and self-hatred in the midst of a bunch of oblivious people in your aunt’s living room and start to feel like you are living in a surreal world no one else is actually a part of and also like your personality is fragmenting in what is possibly a psychotic way.  

Started The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane. I’m really happy to be done with The Man Who Loved Children and on to a new book, and this one looks to be an easy, possibly dumb page-turner, which is well-timed.

Saturday, April 25th:

Snoozed for 40 minutes. Listened to Tanis while coffee etc. Bit of Instagram and Feedly.

While I cleaned the house and deep cleaned my office, I listened to The Bright Sessions, Within the Wires, The Box Podcast, Tracks, and Rabbits.

While I got ready for run, walked back from run, made dinner, cleaned up kitchen, put the laundry away, and got ready for bed, listened to Father Dagon, The Amelia Project, Glasgow Ghost Stories, Middle: Below, The Last Movie, The Van, Video Palace, Blackwood, Dreamboy, Caledonian Gothic, and The London Necropolis Railway. I went through a ton of podcasts today (but also these fiction ones are quite short).

Started to read “At the Landing” by Welty, but I fell asleep super early. I usually save fiction for a couple hours in bed before I go to sleep, because fiction is my favorite thing in the world, but I am so tired by the time I lie down that I often can’t really enjoy it, and fight to stay awake while I try to read and then just fall asleep. So I might need to rethink this timing.

Overall, I think this has been a successful first week of doing this! On Saturday, I had a day off, and I spent basically zero time procrastinating with garbage media! I can really see how my consumption of dumb stuff went down through the week.