[ilwolm]

Okay.. I'm gonna go back and watch season 1 again.

[kageonna]

Five and romance

“Five is a 58-year-old adult in a child’s body, he should be treated like an adult.”

This is the justification some people use to pair Five with an adult love interest. While I don’t think that these people are wrong and they should be free to ship Five with whomever they want, I can’t help but feel like the justification is a little… off.

Five is not a child, but an argument could be made that Five never actually grew up, something I’m pretty sure a lot of people feel the same about. Yes, he had aged physically, but between the total isolation of the apocalypse and the cruelty of the commission, he never had a chance to mature as an individual.

Consider this: He hasn’t formed any meaningful relationships since he was 13 years old. Every interaction he’s had after finally leaving the apocalypse and getting to meet people is either confrontation, negotiation, extortion, supplication, or any combination of the above. Everything he’s done since he was 13 was to survive and to save his family. He doesn’t know what to do without an apocalypse dogging his heels and he’s admitted as much.

Despite Five’s intelligence and the way he carries himself, deep down I think he is still the boy who ran away from home and got lost 45 years ago. It makes me uncomfortable to think how horribly easy it is to take advantage of him in such a vulnerable state, not just inexperienced but also stunted, traumatized, and starving for human affection.

There is no easy way to write Five romance because it feels wrong regardless of whether he’s in the body of an old man or a preteen boy. At this point I think Five is simply not ready to consent to a romantic or sexual relationship and it has nothing to do with his age.

Imagine Five fresh out of the apocalypse having an affair with the Handler. That cannot be in any way a consensual relationship even if you take blackmail out of the equation. (So much angst potential though.)

Right now what Five needs is lots of platonic love and therapy. He needs to unpack all those years of trauma and adapt to a life that isn’t a constant battle for survival. He needs to reconnect with his siblings, form new connections with other people and learn relationship dynamics. He needs to have a chance to grow up again and learn how to be himself before venturing into more intimate relationships because it wouldn’t be healthy otherwise.

He needs to be treated like an adult by other people as well, not just by one person. That would be an imbalanced relationship, one that opens him up to exploitation of his biggest insecurity. How easily Five could be led to believe that the love interest is the only one who treats him like an adult, the only one who understands him, and then Five would become entirely dependent on that person for validation.

(I feel like this is the crux of a lot of self-inserts but that’s a can of worms I’m not touching with a 10-foot pole.)

Five is not a child, but he isn’t just an adult in a child’s body either. He’s neither here nor there, a boy lost in time and a man who lost a lifetime, simultaneously too old and half-grown.

He doesn’t need to be treated with kid gloves, but he should be allowed to mature properly and develop an identity of his own, so that he is better equipped to handle more complex relationships. If it takes years for him to get there, in enough time for his body to reach adulthood again, well, that’s not a bad thing either. I mean, what’s the rush?

[kageonna]

lmao this did not age well

[diegodaggers]

Lila + Five in season 4 requested by anonymous

[ashes-and-starlight]

okay but like. I LOVE their dynamic so much. Even in the first four episodes of s4, their duo was so funny and good to watch and I was so glad to have them back as silly frenemies. I LOVE them SO MUCH OK.

I was thinking, wow…. This season is giving me all I could dream of!! More great Lila and five content, they’re doing things similar to in season 3, but the dynamic has definitely evolved and that’s really nice to see - they’re closer, five is so comfortable around Lila and it’s really nice to see???? She’s like his only good friend and it’s amazing!!! Five and Lila content soooo good I can’t wait to see the hug scene from the trailer and what triggered it -

and then episode five happened.

[kageonna]

Hey guys, remember when Five reversed time to save his family? Yeah, me neither.

[moon-trees]

Season 4 of tua is the opposite of fan service. Fan disservice if you will.

[saintbadwolf]

to be honest, the ending wasn't my problem. it's not a horrible way to end a show that has primarily been about a dysfunctional but loving family trying and failing to stop the apocalypse. having that family die to save the world but die together and willingly and in the end be reincarnated (ish?) as flowers under the same tree, i think that's really beautiful in a way. it's the details that fuck with me. five and lila are an insane choice, no resolution for sloane, everyone kind of just fucking off and having stories with no payoff that don't actually build to anything, ray just walking out, etc. like the last few minutes weren't the worst, it's really just everything leading up to those moments that were at best highly questionable

[lookingforhappy]

Five's trigger discipline

I've noted before that Five, in this scene, is holding his finger on the trigger guard rather than the the trigger itself, as you're supposed to do

so I went back and found every time Five holds a gun in the series

annoyingly, the other time we see five holding a pistol, he's holding it in the wrong hand:

five is left handed, old five is using his right hand.

its a little harder to see bc of the angle but Five's finger isn't on the trigger, or even on the guard, it's on the grip.

He wasn't even considering shooting here.

technically he's holding the rifle consistently at least, left hand on the barrel, right on the trigger/grip:

and his trigger discipline is shittier as an old man (his finger is on the trigger long before JFK even arrives in the area) ... tho i guess that could be blamed on the psychosis?

I guess we could also blame insanity/illness on him having his finger on the trigger in this scene - or we could say that this is Five at his most inexperienced or most scared.

again, his left hand is on the barrel, and right on the grip. it's kinda hard to catch bc this scene is so quick but Five's either got his finger on the trigger or trigger guard.

what's more interesting about this scene is that five relaxes his stance (his finger is definitely on the guard in this scene, so either he's dropped his guard or his trigger discipline is still holding)

despite the Swede (Axel) entering the barn with hostile intent and killing the Handler in seconds flat, Five is actually more relaxed in the moments after the Handler's death (when an armed assassin enters the room) than the moments before (when he had the only adversary unarmed and at the end of his gun).

he pulls the gun back into a defensive stance when Axel steps inside the barn but just before he drops it you can catch a glimpse of his finger still on the guard. again, his trigger discipline is holding up.

[bloominnglilies-deactivated2024]

NOT MY FIVE

[orchidking10]

Just wanna draw attention to the most frequently said and probably most important Five quote, that says A LOT about how his character was written during season 4

“WHAT ABOUT MY FAMILY?”

[kageonna]

Must be the dementia. Guy is past 70 now.

[feralnumberfive]

Fun fact about S4: Five does not exist! Don't try to look for him because he's not there!

[kageonna]

They destroyed his character near the end of Season 3 and he just... never recovered from that. He's so passive in S4, barely reacted to anything, then suddenly became a lovesick idiot. It was painful to watch.

[kageonna]

What Season 4?

As far as I'm concerned, The Umbrella Academy ended at Season 2.

Five x Lila was fucking gross and creepy. And what was the point of the Subway? Actually, what was the point of anything???

[unabashedmoonlight]

I think tua made the sibling dynamics too healthy too soon. They were all isolated, made to compete with each other, abused, each others' only true company for years and the only ones who could understand each other. Then after the academy parted ways, most of them didn't interact. It was heavily implied in the first season that this is after a decade that Allison is meeting Klaus yada yada. Diego, notably, still harbours resentment and anger and so does Viktor and I am sure others do too.

All of this apparently got fixed because in season 2 because they got stuck in the past and didn't meet each other for years/months. I Get what they were trying to do. Years/months of being alone and stuck while not knowing if the others are alive or if they will ever meet again will give way to some of the kinder feelings.

But what do you mean they all just forgave Viktor. I don't consider that scenario to be 'Viktor ending the world' but how come They don't? Being stuck should have given way to feelings of some anger and misplaced blame too. They all lost other people too, they lost their entire world and they were not angry about that?? Some of them should be blaming Luther too? Some should go blame Allison because she fired the bullet? Again, I don't blame any of them but they all should be blaming each other imo.

They weren't bombarding Klaus with questions about Ben? Neither were they furious with him?

They should have been more angry, clingy, guilt-struck, trauma dumped on each other because of their unique experiences while also not really talking about their feelings and I think some of this they did do with Klaus (and kind of Five but he should have been more unhinged at all times) but then missed the mark on everyone else.

And of course, they are going to have fun childhood memories but these are supposedly children who got half an hour of free time per WEEK. Most of their fun and beloved memories should be a bit more extreme/violent than the ones they were constantly recalling.

It just comes off as way too unrealistic and I know tua is not a show that cares about that, its camp is half its appeal but the other half is its characters and their dynamics and I think they messed that up in season 2.

It was still fun, don't get me wrong but I suppose it could have been more fun.

[rubychenart]

Five and Mr. pennycrumb🥹❤️‍🔥

on instagram

[pizzat-i]

five doodle that i never posted ! :)

[allisoooon]

All of the Hargreeves siblings are bad people.  Not in the way you’d describe someone morally deficient, but in the same way as you’d call someone a bad dancer or a bad plumber when they lack the expected skill set.  They just suck at being humans in a society.

[allisoooon]

How I would fix Allison’s s3 arc

Allison’s deal with Reginald is almost identical to Five’s deal with the Handler.  The difference, besides their demographic information, is that we saw Five’s journey into making that decision.  Instead of getting that for Allison, we got Five’s perspective as he worked out the mystery.  And Five tends to kind of assume the worst about people, which meant the audience was assuming the worst about Allison.  Including the idea that she knew Reg intended to kill Luther and Klaus and that she was okay with it.  Which was an assumption that stuck with people even after the scene where she made it clear she did not and was not.

The biggest fucking writing problem of Allison’s arc this season, maybe of the entire season, is that she was framed as a potential villain even though she was never intended to become one.

How would I fix this?

First of all, use Allison’s perspective instead of Five’s.  That was an absolutely shit choice that served no purpose. It’s possible Robert Askins, who wrote episode 3.09, was worried Five wasn’t involved enough, but that is not a good enough reason to fuck over Allison’s character and frankly, the choice doesn’t even lead Five to do anything except get hostile toward Allison.

Remove the mystery of who Reg made a deal with.  End episode 3.08 with Reginald seeking out Allison and listening to her, really listening to her, and talking about how he knows what it’s like to lose the people you love the most.  Have Reginald give her the kind of compassion and understanding her siblings neglected to give her. Obviously, in the end, it will have been an act to manipulate her.  He tells her he has a plan that could save everyone and bring their dead loved ones back. He asks if he can count on her support, and we end the scene with her considering it.

We can still have Five drunkenly witnessing half of the end of their conversation, but it’s not a mystery to us.  To us, it’s, “oh shit, Five is onto them.”

When she hugs Viktor and we see her dead eyes (and know therefore that she’s faking this forgiveness), we might get a little flashback that shows her accepting Reginald’s deal.  

She says, “And this will save everyone?  And give me Ray and Claire?”  

Reginald replies, “By tomorrow night, you will have your husband and daughter in your arms.”

Notably, his promise does not include the lives of her siblings, but she thinks it does because she is asking about this saving everyone.

Five has his realization that Allison made a deal with Reginald, and they all discover Luther’s body.  Allison’s look of horror at Reginald as she realizes there’s a hole in the deal she made will deliver more of a punch.

We can keep most of 3.10 the same, but maybe change her line to Five about the deal she made to something like, “You think I would actually conspire to murder my brothers?” Because the way it’s written on the show, it just sounds like she’s denying that she made a deal when the thing she’s pissed about is that Five thinks she would knowingly let Luther and Klaus die.

When Reginald is draining everyone else, have her say something like, “You said this would save everyone and you’re killing them!” before his “Everything has a price” line. Everything else can stay the same.

The thing about this fix is that I’m not making anything up here.  I’m just showing things that are already implicit in the show (which is a subjective thing, but still).  It also doesn’t change anything Allison actually does, it just contextualizes it.  The moral greyness is still there, her previous poor choices are still there, but we can sympathize with her.

[crow-jam]

You can’t convince me this didn’t happen