O Sweet, Gentle Death…

okay maybe I’m biased, but did it bother anyone else how literally none of the characters acknowledge that Harlan /is/ like family to Viktor? When they’re deciding whether or not to give him to the Sparrows it’s always “Harlan saved our lives” or “Viktor owes Harlan for giving him powers”. Not “Viktor partly raised him” or “Harlan is like a son to Viktor”. Family is soooo important but Harlan doesn’t get to count?

i’m not going to get into it fully right now but what the umbrella academy writers did this season to allison has fucking pissed me off. immensely. her being a villain? FINE! her getting angry at all she’s lost and the racism she’s had to face is perfectly valid. but this?? what she was going to do to luther? seriously? not only was it triggering it felt targeted. let me ask one question to the writers. why did cha cha, marcus, fei, and allison get these stories? these endings? these arcs?

I feel like that's kinda the point. Chaos isn't going to be something that stays consistent, much like how chaos in our lives is never consistent. I personally like the change and hope that if there is anything past Hades 2 that they continue to change it because I think it works perfectly for who I believe Chaos is like.

I also feel that the head is included to show that chaos always leads to change, and what better way to represent change than a whole change of design but still making it known, especially for those who've played Hades, that Chaos is change.

I don’t know how to feel about this. i like the design but it’s so different from the first game (esp with the head from the first game in their hand) so I want to know why they felt the need to change chaos’s design at all. chaos was conventionally attractive in the first game wrt their face so I want to know if this is meant to lean into that—and once again, why

Five: No drinking, no gambling, no premarital sex. Klaus, they basically just outlawed 90% of your personality

Klaus: We need to leave

Have you ever felt like there's something you're supposed to be doing, something important, but no one's telling you what it is, and you're scared that youre gonna miss out or... or.. mess it up because you're always screwin' things up, and you're really fuckin tired of it!

Klaus Hargreeves

ive never felt a monologue so closely in my entire life

Van Gogh's Starry Night with the first image taken by the James Webb telescope by alpgenart (via astronomy_eye)

I totally agree! I don't want them to treat it as if it's something that's done overnight and I think showing him spiral even farther than he already is would be helpful in also making it more obvious that addiction isn't something that just goes away, it takes a lot of work and sometimes it's a life time commitment to getting better and that it's okay too.

I'd also love to see the use of therapy being beneficial for ones wellbeing because though there are instances where it can cause more harm (I've experienced quite a few personally), not all of it is bad. We have so much media that portrays it as something bad (we even see that Diego and Lila in S2 when one of the staff threatens and even hurts Diego), so showing the good that can come from it would be great. There's actually a fic I've been reading where the writer talks about Klaus going to therapy and sharing some of his therapy sessions with his siblings and I really love that!

Of course, with the episode limit there's no way to fit all of this on top of everyone else's storylines and I don't want a spinoff focusing on just Klaus like some in the fandom want because damn do I love him, but I would have loved for this all to be a part of the major storyline.

I saw your post talking about Klaus' addiction and how his family plays into the role of how society tends to treat addicts, which I totally agree on and I'm so thankful to see others speak up on it, but I also wanted to bring up that there's even more issues with how some people in the fandom, and society as well, treat addiction.

A lot of society only treats addicts horribly if their drug(s) of choice are "hard drugs". Nobody sees Allison's smoking cigarettes in S3 or all the drinking done in all seasons as an addiction because they've been so normalized. They're so normalized that there are hundreds of shows that show a lot of drinking and/or smoking cigarettes/cigars and hardly anyone considers any of those characters as addicts.

And I think that also plays into the way Klaus' siblings treated him while struggling with addiction because they participate in it too, but they never get called an addict because their addictions are "normal". "Why can't Klaus just drink like everyone else and not do 'hard drugs'"?

Oh absolutely, I did actually get into this a bit in a follow-up post (here)

And like, addictive behaviours can latch onto anything. Gambling, exercise, food, shopping, music, sex, gaming... if it gives a moment of happiness and dopamine it can become maladaptive as an outlet and an escape...

Alcohol causes much more social and physical harm than many "hard" drugs, and in much smaller quantities, despite being much more socially acceptable. And it isn't criminalized in the same ways (which is good, because criminalizing a health issue is wrong and doesn't work, because social rejection and judgment force people deeper into addiction, and by making things illegal you create black markets and fund organised crime and really do everything to increase the problem at hand).

And you're right in that the siblings (and society) treat drinking (and smoking) as different, even with Klaus who is very much an alcoholic...

Because many people do turn to bad habits and alcohol during bad times.

But it is interesting to note that while a large number of the siblings are self-medicating during that time due to their level of alcohol use, and in a very unhealthy way, it doesn't necessarily mean they're addicts as well. Or rather, not addicts in the same way as Klaus.

I'm reminded of a study done about drug use, particularly heroin usage, by soldiers in the Vietnam War. Where drug use was ubiquitous and at incredibly high levels. And yet when most of these soldiers returned home they stopped using it entirely (and this is a physical dependency causing substance, so unsupervised withdrawal can easily kill a person).

Because they were no longer in the situation they wanted to escape.

Of course not every soldier stopped using, and the homeless, addicted veteran is a well-known figure in the popular consciousness for a very real reason. But often those soldiers who kept using weren't coming back to any sort of support system or a good situation at all. And there was, and still is, a huge lack of support for the trauma inflicted by war on those forced into it ( I say as someone who had half their family conscripted into a Cold War related war, even if it wasn't the Vietnam War specifically).

It was something of a real-life example of the Rat Park experiment, which has trended on Tumblr before, and also illustrated how connected addicted behaviours are to the environment that people are in...

But this is to me part of why they treat their behaviour as "different" and why they also don't bother Klaus about his drinking in s2 and 3, even as he consumes much more than any of them and started carrying a flask again that he's seen drinking from constantly, even in the less stressful situations he's in since he first relapsed s2...

Because he can't stop once he started again.

The others can't comment on his drinking, if they even notice it with everyone being so wrapped up in their own things, because they're all also drinking at unhealthy levels, particularly in s3, and it's the end of the world so from their perspective, "fuck it!". But even though their own dependency at that point is unhealthy, it's still not at the same level as Klaus's...

Because there is nuance when it comes to addiction and dependence and situational dependency and so much else...

But it is also cause for them to finally sympathise and recognise that "there goes them but for the grace of god", because they really aren't as different as they would like to think... (which tbh, it seems like Luther got after s1, given how he's treated Klaus since)

This is another reason why I'm also so sad about the 6 episode announcement. Because these things being addressed would be best without the apocalypse hanging over them all and giving them the excuse to ignore stuff

But yeah, I think they're gonna be stretched to try and wrap up the plot, and character development and moments are gonna be sacrificed...

Anyway, I have so many thoughts about these topics, and I am so thankful for every ask that allows me to indulge in me thinking my thoughts!

How are you? :D

I'm doing alright! Sorry for the late response, I've been struggling trying to get myself use to working graveyard shift. 🥲

ACE FEI IS CANON WE WON

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