@dailytua​‘s Countdown To Season Two: July 28-30  | Free Space | A Tribute To The High Numbers,

i swear if none of the Hargreeves run up to Sparrow Academy Ben and try to hug him because they're so happy to see him alive in season 3, I'll be throwing punches

@vanyahargreeves07 requested:  klaus and vanyas sibling bond

Will I ever shut up about TUA? Probably, but not today, because I’ve been thinking a lot about Five and Ben and how their stories parallel each other and I am emotional. 

It’s so interesting to me, the common things that they share - they both were probably the closest/most supportive to Vanya, and both of them “left” the family in a sense. Five’s disappearance fractured the family, and Ben’s death cause it to completely break apart. They both have an interesting arc of isolation, wanting their siblings back, and being “stuck” down to the point that they’re literally stuck in the clothes that they were wearing when they disappeared from their families. 

Let’s start with Five - I was surprised, at first, that he seemed calm in his talk with Reginald. That he said he gave Reginald a hard time, instead of putting blame on Reginald. Because sure, yeah, Five is a little shit but Reginald is literally an abusive parent, why would Five, who’s arguably smart and seemed to not care about Reginald’s death in the first place, say that he was the problem? And then I thought about it and honestly - it make sense. We’ve seen an episode on Five’s life, the isolation that he felt and how badly he wanted to see his siblings again. And well, I guess he did see his siblings but their bodies, a reminder that they were in danger somewhere back in time and that he couldn’t get to them. Five is left alone with his thoughts and bodies of people he couldn’t save, and like he tells Diego, all he hears is Reginald’s voice, every day, saying “I told you so.” He has the proof that Reginald is right, he goes back and narrowly avoids it only to immediately see yet another future where his siblings die, and he’s constantly trying to go above and beyond to save his siblings. 

We even see it in his scene with Vanya - when she asks him who started the apocalypse, Five hesitates and says an asteroid, because he doesn’t want to hurt her, as blunt and detached as he’s seemed this whole series. Five probably doesn’t even really blame her, but himself. He’s convinced himself that he needs to be the one who saves his family, he goes at a lot of things alone and without their knowledge, he tries this because his isolation led him to believe that yes, Reginald was right and Five was wrong. Maybe if hadn’t been stubborn as a kid this wouldn’t have happened, maybe if he had practiced instead of being overeager they wouldn’t be in this situation. It strikes me that Five is in his same clothes, something we joke about, but Five keeps himself in this by choice. It’s a reminder of when he left, when he realized he’d made a mistake, a symbol of what happened and a reminder that he needs to save his family no matter what.

And now looking at Ben. Ben has Klaus, yes, but we see, especially in season 2, how much Ben struggles with isolation. He only has Klaus, and as much as I love him, Klaus straight up denies Ben the autonomy to interact with other humans based off of pettiness. Ben has been a passive observer for 17 years, he’s stuck in his clothes because he literally cannot change them. But you know what else? We don’t see a whole lot on Ben outside of Klaus, but we get a good glimpse on how life (or well, the afterlife) is for him when all the siblings are together. When they leave and we see Ben say, “I missed you all. So much.” He’s there, seeing everything that they do, trying to be there but unable to, and he loves them, he knows them, he understands them. Ben is the least “resentful” sibling outside of his occasional resentment towards Klaus - he wants to see his siblings succeed and be okay, and I think it’s an important look on how he lived as a ghost while they were all in the house, because they all didn’t leave right away. 

In the house? Sure he’s stuck to Klaus, but he could still see his other siblings, see how they were doing and coping. Reginald did a great job of turning the kids against each other and making them feel alone in their trauma, but Ben as a ghost got to see that Vanya was being drugged and isolated, that Luther and Allison felt like they only had each other, that Klaus needed to dope himself up to not feel the pain, he saw everything the siblings were going through and how Reginald was treating them, and you know what his conclusion was? What he said to Vanya - that Reginald was afraid of her, drugged her, made her suppress her emotions, and that was messed up. He lets her know, Vanya is surprised to hear it and probably never even realized that it was messed up, but Ben lets her know. He’s recognized that Reginald is an abusive father but that it is not their fault and that they are not the monsters because of Reginald’s bad parenting. Ben has had this time to think about who’s at fault and it wasn’t him, it wasn’t Five, it wasn’t Vanya, they were all children, it was the grown man who was supposed to be a father. 

It’s just so amazing to see and I don’t know if they’re intentionally contrasted but I think it’s so cool and heartbreaking to see how these two had to deal with isolation and came to different conclusions on their father, yes, but also came back with so much love and care for their siblings even if they express it differently. 

I’m calling it

I think they’re gonna kill Sparrow!Ben in season 3.

i’ve just thought of a concept that is either genius or madness, i haven’t decided yet. but what if vanya and diego swapped their season 2 arcs?

so like, vanya touches down in 1963 and doesn’t forget everything that’s just happened, doesn’t forget that she’s just ended the world, and starts her sixties journey with a well deserved freak out. she ends up sobbing on the street about how she killed everyone, how she destroyed the moon- and promptly finds herself in a psychiatric clinic. which is where she finds lila. lila, who isn’t afraid of her. lila, who doesn’t make her feel like a freak because, lila is weird too. 

and when vanya uses her powers to save them from the swedes, lila still isn’t afraid of her. they run, and it’s wild and crazy in a way that vanya never thought her life would be-

up until lila betrays her.

and it’s even worse, because vanya had trusted her, had told her about how jenkins had used her, and lila’s done it all over again - but she doesn’t look happy, doesn’t look smug or vindicated, and vanya recognises the look on her face, because she knows what it’s like to hurt the people you care about. and if vanya could be forgiven, if she could still be loved, then maybe lila could be too.

meanwhile, diego drops down in the sixties, immediately runs out into the street without thinking, and gets acquainted with the bumper of sissy’s car. and the guy looks dangerous, with all his scars and knives, but sissy just hit him with her car. so she takes him home - and of course she can’t tell her husband, so she sets him up in the barn, thinking once he wakes up he’ll be on his way

except, diego wakes up without his memories beyond his name. and he doesn’t seem dangerous, not really, so she can’t just throw him out, can she? besides, carl is barely home these days, and she could use some help around the farm. she doesn’t really intend to let him around harlan, but it’s a small farm, and it’s not long until she ends up introducing them. diego doesn’t seem to know how to act around kids, because he freezes up, but as soon as it’s clear that harlan is non-verbal, he sort of just- clicks. he doesn’t try to get harlan to speak, not like carl does, just quietly plays with him without any expectations. and when he witnesses one of harlan’s meltdowns, he doesn’t seem alarmed by it. he just… understands. looking at his scars, sissy wonders if he had been prone to them, too.

one day, she sits down with him in the barn, when carl is asleep, and asks him how he’s so good with harlan, when his own father doesn’t want to be around him. diego goes distant, thoughtful. says he thinks he had a speech problem as a kid - a stammer, maybe. sissy goes hopeful, and says, you don’t stammer at all now. you got better. but diego doesn’t smile. he says, no, he doesn’t, but he doesn’t think that happened out of kindness. he might not remember who he was, but he still feels a rush of fear when words stick in his mouth. he tells her that he wishes he’d had someone to accept him as he was, rather than trying to change him. and suddenly it’s not so strange that he’s so good with harlan.

they talk. a lot. diego thinks that it might be unusual, for him, because it’s hard, but he trusts her. almost like a sister, he thinks. and he’s protective like a brother, too. so when sissy finally admits that she wants to be free of carl, free of the way he looks at harlan, free of the way he bullies her, diego is more than happy to have a… conversation, with carl. it turns out, he’s very good with knives.

anyway, not sure where i’m going with this, but it sure was a Thought

“Is there any way that tacos can end the world?”

THEY KIND OF DID THOUGH

Because they went out for tacos, her siblings convinced Vanya to tell Sissy how she felt.

That’s how they had the fight.

So Sissy came and found her afterwards, resulting in Carl seeing them and later threatening Vanya.

Which lead to Vanya and Sissy running sway, Vanya getting arrested, and then...

Her blowing up the FBI building.

They knew what they where doing letting Vanya dress like that

What if the umbrella academy was a novel series?

warmup sketch of klaus