#say no to lila

[bigfatbreak]

Birds of a Feather previous / next

[non-plutonian-druid]

[ID: A drawing of all the Hargreeves plus Lila riding in Diego's van from season 4, wearing the outfits they usually wear in the promo posters. Diego is driving and using a fist to mime singing into a mic. Five is reading a newspaper in the passenger seat. In the row behind them, Klaus is dangling his arms out the window, Lila is throwing snacks at Five's head, and Allison is sharing headphones with Viktor who is sitting behind her. Ben is in the same row as Viktor and is staring straight ahead looking shaken. Luther is taking a nap in the trunk. End ID.]

Family Road Trip!!

[laurrelise]

“five and lila actually make total sense” “all these fake fans just don’t understand” “the writers have been planning this since lila was introduced”

my honest reaction:

[thehargreevesfam]

One defense I’ve seen for the Five Lila thing from Blackman and the few people I’ve seen online ship it is ‘they’ve been together for 7 years. What did you expect? This was a natural outcome’

Aside from the obvious answer that Five has been stuck in an apocalypse for 45 years before, and still did everything in his power to get back to his family, that reasoning makes absolutely no sense because Blackman could’ve just not written that entire plot line altogether. He says it as if his hands are tied, as if HE is not the head writer on the show. If a plot point makes you write another plot point that completely assassinates your characters, then maybe don’t…write that plot point to begin with?

[in-a-slanted-outhouse]

I was writing about this in the tags but no it deserves its own post. Like putting aside how uncomfortable it was and how creepy it was towards Aidan and how it’s against Five’s character and blah blah blah. Five and Lila’s storyline was incredibly sexist. I am too tired to go too in depth on this so if anyone wants to add anything then please do. It is 10pm and this is hastily written but I just want you all to understand how fucking angry I am

Lila starts out as this badass female assassin. She has a really strong character and personality and although she’s seen as a part of Diego’s storyline in s2 she very much feels like her own character and she integrates into Hargreeves like a new main character

S4 just… She’s a mother of three kids which is objectively fine I guess?? Like making her a mother was kinda sexist but they could’ve made it work. But it’s been six years and she doesn’t have a job. They turn her into a stay at home mother which was unnecessary. And almost her entire storyline revolves around Five. They don’t delve into her relationship with her parents even though they were dead. You barely see them. So much of what she does was the writers setting the scene so her and Five can get together. She starts looking into The Keepers so she can bump into Five and then have that scene in the cafe. She is unpleased with her marriage so she can get with Five. She wants to explore the subway system and try to time travel back to fix the timeline so that she can get lost in there with Five. It’s actually so foul. I am so disgusted. She argues with Five and says that it’s not about him and Five says that it is about him. They then make Five out as some like kicked puppy. Her reuniting with Diego has Five standing right there looking all sad. Her reuniting with her kids also has Five standing there all ‘woe is me.’ He then has his whole sulking on the train bit like they try SO hard to make you feel sorry for him. Her saying goodbye to her kids also has Five standing right there and then as she’s crying in his arms he leans his head into her hair like he owns her or something and seems almost happy after seeing her have to abandon her fucking children. And then right at the end as they’re about to die Lila goes and holds his hand to make him feel better

Lila was such a cool and complex character and it was really refreshing to see a woman especially a woc be morally grey and they threw it all away

They made a poc woman’s character arc revolve entirely around a white man for a conventional cishet romance that nobody wanted and actively harmed the actors on the show. They turned her into Five’s little plaything so Steve could live out his perverted fantasy of Five having a wife and I am utterly disgusted by it

[zoe-oneesama]

Can you blame Alya for not holding a grudge when she got such an awesome prize in return?

Episode 42 Part 14

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Season 1, Season 2, Season 3, Season 4, Season 5

Ep 41, Ep 43, Ep 44, Ep 45, Ep 46, Ep 47

Ko-fi | Patreon

[skitkattl]

you love it when it's about you, don't you?

+ up close standalone portraits

[renatapatata]

reading anything that steve blackman has to say regarding five and lila’s plotlines in season four like

[bigfatbreak]

Birds of a Feather previous / next

[sublimeinal-messages]

How great would it have been to have Lila and Diego’s marital problems actually be that they’re both tired of normal marital life, when both of them are secretly getting back into the superhero / assassin gig behind eachother’s backs?

Like, ok Diego can still has his infidelity suspicion plot, thinking lila is cheating on him with five (which is fake. Didn’t happen at all. We all agree right?) but it turns out that Lila and Five are actually meeting up to plot, talking about old commission stuff on the downlow. Diego sneaks out to find them having dinner and he’s heartbroken, but it’s actually them eating takeout over assassination plans with files all over the table detailing how to kill someone without a trace, with pictures of alleyway vantage points and sniper rifles.

I didn’t expect this to end up being A Whole Thing but I had to write it out. Full thing under the cut:

Meanwhile, Diego’s been lying to Lila about losing his job. He hasn’t shown up for work in weeks, and recently got fired. Levaing the family financially unstable. Diego’s still showing up to be a dad during his usual scheduled times, but he hasn’t been paid in a while and both parents seem to be pulled away in different directions. And now the kids have begun to notice. This comes to a peak when one of their kids spot someone in their house at night dressed in black, and they tell Lila later that they saw Batman. Obviously Lila sees right through this and confronts Diego, who confronts her right back over her infidelity. Lila laughs in his face, because he’d have to be insane to think she’s ever do that, and with Five?? The barely-legal teenager who killed her parents? Are you stupid?? (Stares directly at the camera). But Diego’s hurt. He can’t get a clear answer on what they’re doing because she doesn’t want to admit she’s tired of being a housewife and wants to kick ass again. All they can agree on is that this isn’t working anymore, neither of them are happy, and they just hurt each others feelings.

So this fight ends in Diego storming out. They’re on a break. Lila is heartbroken, the kids don’t know what’s going on, and Diego throws himself wholeheartedly into being a vigilante again. It’s shown he’s fighting some shady organization that seems to have far reaching ties—related to Reginald, Abigail, and their new reset empire. Lila doesn’t know what to do, she gets some in-laws to stay over and look after the kids as she goes out to look for him (to no avail) and it ends up being the day she and five planned on their big assassination happening. Lila caves and says to five he’s gotta do this himself because her family is falling apart. Five is annoyed and makes a quip about how this is why he never lets romantic attachments get in in the way of him doing a job (stares directly into camera).

So five takes his sniper rifle and goes to the location early, where he’s positioned to take out their mark. Lila is out looking for Diego, and Diego is kitted up, on his way to take out these shady people he’s been making a case on, and intends to stop what they’re doing before they do it.

Anyone pick up where this is going yet?

Diego shows up at the location—a shady laboratory owned in secret by Reginald Hargreeves. The place is familiar. Diego slips into an alleyway. but what’s this? We’ve seen It’s the exact same alleyway but from a different point of view! Five is perched on the roof with a sniper, looking down at him. He gets his quarry in his sights and takes one final, steadying breath. This mission is going exactly as planned. The idiot showed up right as predicted. He didn’t even come with backup this time. It’s a textbook fish in a barrel. It’s almost disappointing how this couldn’t be an easier kill. But maybe Five’s glory days are just behind him. He puts his finger on the trigger.

Cut to diego and Lila’s house. It’s dark inside. Gracie and the twins have been put to bed and the in-laws are tired and in the living room. A phone rings, and it’s Lila, calling to say she hasn’t found Diego and is hoping he came back, but it’s not the case. Lila says she’ll be back soon and the in-laws begin packing up to go home. Gracie stands in the hallway, overhearing. To her, her whole world is falling apart, and she runs back to the twin’s bedroom in tears. She can’t believe this is happening. The lights are turned off in the hallway and the house grows quiet. The front door opens and closes and it’s implied that the in-laws have just gone home. Mum will be back soon, but the twins won’t stop crying, so Gracie gets up to get them some milk and cookies to make them happy again. She steps out into the dark hallway

To see a man dressed like Batman, in full fight gear. And she looks up at him with hope in her eyes, saying “daddy?”

Only surprise! It’s not, and they grab her as she lets out a scream. We cut to Diego as he reaches to open the door at the end of the alley only to find it locked, and realize he’s been set up. He spins around only for a gunshot to sound, and it cuts to black.

Lila comes back to the house. Finds it trashed. Finds her Inlaws murdered in horrific fashion in the driveway. Gracie and the twins are gone. And the little domestic life she and Diego made destroyed as we cut back to Diego, bleeding out in the street from what looks like a fatal gunshot.

Then five comes down from his perch to confirm his kill, only to realize what he’s just done.

So there. Here’s a dramatic, non-cheating subplot that has a similar amount of stakes that we could’ve had with season 4. Maybe Lila and Five end up going on a crusade for everyone to get their powers back so they can bring Diego back from the dead. Maybe this is what leads them to the subway, to mess with the timeline again, because as commission agents they can’t let go of the idea that time can be fixed and it isn’t theirs to mess with anymore. Maybe this sends Lila over the edge, and when trapped in the subway with five—she tries to murder him instead!! After all, he’s not only killed her parents, he’s now killed her husband! Why not have five scramble to figure out a way back for all those years while running for his life? (While a scooby-doo like soundtrack plays and they get all turned around and confused). Maybe Diego isn’t actually dead in the end, and it’s all a bait and switch to fool Reginald, who was watching and lines the whole thing up to fuck with them. Taking the kids as a deterrent so they won’t dig any deeper. But maybe in the last second before five pulls the trigger five hesitates. Maybe he doesn’t have what it takes to murder anymore. He swore it off earlier—what glory is he really chasing anyway? Maybe he recognizes the gait of the person in the alley and makes a non-killing shot to just take them out. Maybe he saw ahead that this was a setup by Reginald and made an agreement with Diego and filled his vest full of blood packets. And he fully knows Lila and Diego are both doing secret little vigilante gigs behind each others backs but tells neither because he really doesn’t want to get in the way of some stuffy marital dispute. Nooooo thanks. He had enough of that when he and Delores were together and bickering constantly. Five just wants his family alive and happy in whatever timeline they end up. (Chokes the spirit of Steve Blackman just a little bit harder)

Anyway, everyone else thinks Diego is dead; and all get together again. Weddings and funerals uniting them once more, and each of them reveal how life didn’t turn out how they wanted on their own, and they get to bond and unite to track down Gracie and the twins. “One last time” they agree, to be heroes and finally do something right. To save some little kids. Members of their family! Innocent ones, who don’t deserve to be caught up in their mess. And it culminates in confronting Reginald once and for all and destroying the ill-gotten gains he warped the universe in his favor for. And Reginald’s gone the rest of them can finally have peace of mind. Maybe the timeline genuinely gets better now that one monocoled megalomaniacal maniac isn’t in the centre of the universe anymore. The very thing that doomed the timeline before. And now the umbrellas are able to disband and go on in their lives as normal people in a timeline that exists with no favouritism at all. It’s all just what they make of it

(and hey! Maybe Diego comes back out of hiding and saves the day! And he and Lila both confess they want to take more active roles outside of being parents. And their kids are wowed by the fact that their parents are both superheroes. And it’s cool and awesome and I don’t sob at a very tragic defeatist ending of all I hold dear).

I don’t know guys. There’s so many different ways the final season could’ve gone, but not in a million years would I have chosen to make it go the way it did. That’s a whole other post—but in the end, I just know I’ll be entertaining my own little ideas for what happens to these characters I’ve grown and loved, and keep them alive in my own heart and AU story ideas. Thats the true canon for me, and the rest is just… fuss and marigold dust

[slightlymad]

L'AMICA GENIALE — ELENA FERRANTE ↳ a special poster for the wonderful and brilliant jo ( @dylanlila ) <33

[thehargreevesfam]

is it just me but it feels like five got dumbed down and nerfed the most in terms of his powers? Five didn’t see Ben steal the marigold, he didn’t figure out the CIA was part of the keepers but Luther did? What? No hate to Luther at all, I love that oaf but it doesn’t feel like FIVE!

Not to mention he was the ONLY one whose powers weren’t working or he couldn’t use to his advantage? Like what? Five? FIVE??? He should’ve figured out the teleporting thing. He should’ve figured out the subway. One opportunity I think the writers didn’t use is as the seasons progress five gains a deeper understanding of time travel and he’s able to figure it out more and more, so it comes full circle from s1 when he got stuck in the apocalypse because he didn’t understand time travel, but they don’t do that!! Like is this the same five who figured out what the sigil was in the s3 finale?

One reason I loved five was his intelligence but it doesn’t feel like it in s4

[tootalltech]

the comments being off on this post really about says it all

[justablognothingweirdhere]

I’ve seen a lot of people talking about the big things in s4 of TUA that pissed them off, so here’s some smaller things that I haven’t rlly seen anyone talk about:

Luther getting his ape body back with his powers even tho the marigold didn’t cause that

Everything Allison did last season being completely ignored except for her briefly saying that no one wants to see her and that little convo with Viktor and her never really apologizing

Five and Diego leaving their siblings to fist fight EACH OTHER when Ben has just turned into a huge, unkillable monster and everyone’s lives are in imminent danger

Everyone consistently saying that Diego was fat, only for him to be completely ripped when his shirt was off during the fight in the CIA office (and don’t try to tell me some bullshit abt it being cause he got his powers back)

Viktor and Reginald essentially having the same conversation of “I want to kill Ben”, “No, let me talk to him” over and over for the entirety of the last episode as if they kept forgetting that they’d already talked about this

Abigail’s reasoning for essentially causing the end of the world being because she felt she didn’t deserve to live because she created the marigold and Durango. Like, girl, go jump if you rlly wanna, but you don’t have to take everyone else with you

Five is consistently shown to be extremely intelligent, yet he can’t figure out the subway system when he’s stuck in it with nothing else to do and nowhere else to go for SEVEN YEARS!! Especially since every single other version of him did it!!

[zleepysnails]

good morning spookysville

leaving this here too :]]

[based-and-rinpilled]

Taking away a woman of color’s agency so she can be a white boy’s wife? Pairing up an actor who you’ve known since he was 13 with a woman who was in her ~30s when they met?? Completely forgetting the guy’s series-long motivation to keep his family alive and safe, and both of their characters for the sake of some stupid ship??? KILLING 3 BIRDS WITH ONE STONE BITCHES